STANLEY@USC-ISIF.ARPA (02/20/86)
Rick: After much experimenting, I have gotten ZCPR3 up and running on my H89, using a BIOS mod written by Jerry Furst. One problem, however: 1. ZCPR3 (correctly) expects to find STARTUP.COM and tries to run it on cold boot. 2. I created STARTUP.COM using ALIAS, consisting only of the LDR commands needed to load the system segments. 3. When ZCPR3 tries to run this ALIAS, it returns either an "Ovfl" error, or it fills the Shell Stack. (Didn't think ALIAS used the Shell Stack!) 4. If I run the same ALIAS (STARTUP) from the ZCPR3 prompt, it works fine. I spoke with Jerry Furst, the BIOS mod author, and he reported that he had the same problem. He was able to work around only by using the ZCPR2 STARTUP.COM program. The STARTUP feature is important to making these systems turn-key for users. I can only figure that something is going wrong in trying to load the system segments. Help, please. What's happening here? Has this affected anyone else? How do I fix it? Once I get this licked, I'll upload Jerry's auto-install ZCPR3 files for the H89 with this fix included. He has done a nice job, and you can install ZCPR3 from scratch on an H89 in about 75 minutes without a hitch. Thanks in advance. ...Dick Stanley stanley@isif
pete@stc.UUCP (02/25/86)
My attempts to mail this have bounced twice now so, with apologies, here it is for everyone: > Rick: > > After much experimenting, I have gotten ZCPR3 up and running on > my H89, using a BIOS mod written by Jerry Furst. One problem, > however: > > 1. ZCPR3 (correctly) expects to find STARTUP.COM and tries to run > it on cold boot. > > 2. I created STARTUP.COM using ALIAS, consisting only of the LDR > commands needed to load the system segments. > > 3. When ZCPR3 tries to run this ALIAS, it returns either an > "Ovfl" error, or it fills the Shell Stack. (Didn't think ALIAS > used the Shell Stack!) > > 4. If I run the same ALIAS (STARTUP) from the ZCPR3 prompt, it > works fine. > > I spoke with Jerry Furst, the BIOS mod author, and he reported > that he had the same problem. He was able to work around only by > using the ZCPR2 STARTUP.COM program. > > The STARTUP feature is important to making these systems turn-key > for users. I can only figure that something is going wrong in > trying to load the system segments. > > Help, please. What's happening here? Has this affected anyone > else? How do I fix it? > > Once I get this licked, I'll upload Jerry's auto-install ZCPR3 > files for the H89 with this fix included. He has done a nice > job, and you can install ZCPR3 from scratch on an H89 in about 75 > minutes without a hitch. > > Thanks in advance. > > ...Dick Stanley > > stanley@isif I had similar problems with ZCPR3 on my Gemini (British) system. In my case neither LDR or ALIAS would work until the whole Z-system was running. I wrote a small 'C' program to substitute for LDR. Then I found the answer. Which was to reassemble ALIAS and LDR from scratch. Not only the SYSENV.LIB file but also all those others like Z3HDR.LIB and CBIOSHDR.LIB get included. Having done this everything was fine. It seems that for everything that runs BEFORE the environment is installed, using Z3INS is not enough. BTW, I had a small but annoying problem when linking ALIAS and LDR. The libraries that come with the distribution disks (I got mine from the New Jersey group via the British CPMUG) were assembled with a version of M80 that only puts the first 6 characters of names in the .REL file, while my copy of M80 exports 8 characters. This caused some names not to match at link time. I worked round this by fixing the sources of ALIAS and LDR. If I wanted to reassemble a lot of utilities I'd rebuild the libraries. Now for a question. Does your PATH work correctly? At boot time one of the programs in my STARTUP script downloads various utilities to my RAMDISK. However I haven't been able to get the path searching to go for this disk before the currently logged-in disk. This is nullifying the use of the RAMDISK, which I went for as an alternative to a number of RCPs. Any help anyone could offer would be much appreciated. Peter Kendell <pete@stc.UUCP> ...!mcvax!ukc!stc!pete "The ultimate expression of law isn't order; it's prison" -- Peter Kendell <pete@stc.UUCP> ...!mcvax!ukc!stc!pete "The ultimate expression of law isn't order; it's prison"
STANLEY@USC-ISIF.ARPA (03/06/86)
Received: FROM USC-ECLB.ARPA BY USC-ISIF.ARPA WITH TCP ; 3 Mar 86 09:39:17 PST from AMSAA.ARPA by USC-ECLB.ARPA; Mon 3 Mar 86 09:38:29-PST from brl-smoke.arpa by AMSAA.ARPA id ab02596; 3 Mar 86 8:30 EST from USENET by SMOKE.BRL.ARPA id a011886; 2 Mar 86 15:30 EST Date: 25 Feb 86 14:03:56 GMT From: pete%stc.co.uk@BRL.ARPA To: info-cpm@AMSAA.ARPA Subject: Re: ZCPR3 STARTUP Return-Path: <@USC-ECLB.ARPA:info-cpm-request@AMSAA> Message-ID: <847@bute.tcom.stc.co.uk> Newsgroups: net.micro.cpm My attempts to mail this have bounced twice now so, with apologies, here it is for everyone: > Rick: > > After much experimenting, I have gotten ZCPR3 up and running on > my H89, using a BIOS mod written by Jerry Furst. One problem, > however: > > 1. ZCPR3 (correctly) expects to find STARTUP.COM and tries to run > it on cold boot. > > 2. I created STARTUP.COM using ALIAS, consisting only of the LDR > commands needed to load the system segments. > > 3. When ZCPR3 tries to run this ALIAS, it returns either an > "Ovfl" error, or it fills the Shell Stack. (Didn't think ALIAS > used the Shell Stack!) > > 4. If I run the same ALIAS (STARTUP) from the ZCPR3 prompt, it > works fine. > > I spoke with Jerry Furst, the BIOS mod author, and he reported > that he had the same problem. He was able to work around only by > using the ZCPR2 STARTUP.COM program. > > The STARTUP feature is important to making these systems turn-key > for users. I can only figure that something is going wrong in > trying to load the system segments. > > Help, please. What's happening here? Has this affected anyone > else? How do I fix it? > > Once I get this licked, I'll upload Jerry's auto-install ZCPR3 > files for the H89 with this fix included. He has done a nice > job, and you can install ZCPR3 from scratch on an H89 in about 75 > minutes without a hitch. > > Thanks in advance. > > ...Dick Stanley > > stanley@isif I had similar problems with ZCPR3 on my Gemini (British) system. In my case neither LDR or ALIAS would work until the whole Z-system was running. I wrote a small 'C' program to substitute for LDR. Then I found the answer. Which was to reassemble ALIAS and LDR from scratch. Not only the SYSENV.LIB file but also all those others like Z3HDR.LIB and CBIOSHDR.LIB get included. Having done this everything was fine. It seems that for everything that runs BEFORE the environment is installed, using Z3INS is not enough. BTW, I had a small but annoying problem when linking ALIAS and LDR. The libraries that come with the distribution disks (I got mine from the New Jersey group via the British CPMUG) were assembled with a version of M80 that only puts the first 6 characters of names in the .REL file, while my copy of M80 exports 8 characters. This caused some names not to match at link time. I worked round this by fixing the sources of ALIAS and LDR. If I wanted to reassemble a lot of utilities I'd rebuild the libraries. Now for a question. Does your PATH work correctly? At boot time one of the programs in my STARTUP script downloads various utilities to my RAMDISK. However I haven't been able to get the path searching to go for this disk before the currently logged-in disk. This is nullifying the use of the RAMDISK, which I went for as an alternative to a number of RCPs. Any help anyone could offer would be much appreciated. Peter Kendell <pete@stc.UUCP> ...!mcvax!ukc!stc!pete "The ultimate expression of law isn't order; it's prison" -- Peter Kendell <pete@stc.UUCP> ...!mcvax!ukc!stc!pete "The ultimate expression of law isn't order; it's prison" -------------------- Peter, Yes, my PATH does work properly. However, I set the path using PATH.COM, and noit as part of the BIOS initialization. PATH.COM is called by the STARTUP alias and is used with my RAM disk. It works fine. In fact, one of the reasons I wanted to get ZCPR3 up was to avoid losing the >SUB file tail on the default when the RAM disk was activated. BTW, did you notice my later note on the fix for getting STARTUP to run correctly? You must put the address of Z3CL into Z3ENV+18H at initialization time. When you do that, it all works fine. ...Dick Stanley stanley@isif