RCONN@simtel20.ARPA (09/05/84)
From: Richard Conn <RCONN@simtel20.ARPA> My replies to the following questions may be of general interest to the community. -- Rick Date: Saturday, 1 September 1984 23:45-MDT From: Peter Lyman <LYMAN at JPL-VLSI.ARPA> To: rconn cc: lyman at jpl-vlsi Re: zcpr3 comments/questions Rick... Just got zcpr3 up and running on a Discovery Multi Processor... Great system... having lots of fun with it... 1. HELP.MAC uses COUT from syslib... COUT goes direct to bios thus bypassing BDOS and in particular TAB expansion.... A regression from prior versions of HELP... (I just used an internal COUT to solve the problem) Reply: The routine BOUT (BDOS Output) in SYSLIB3 can also be used. BOUT and COUT both output the char in A with no side effects, but BOUT uses the BDOS while COUT uses the BIOS. 2. Prior versions of HELP (at least the ones I have) display available HLP files on the disk when HELP is typed... Why is is this gone? Reply: I was not happy with that feature of HELP. I removed it for the following reasons: (1) I didn't feel it was used very frequently and it cost in terms of space (2) I didn't like its operation; if the SYSLIB series of HLP files was in the path, for example, then all 20 of them would appear as options, but it only makes sense to see SYSLIB.HLP and not the rest unless you have memorized what SYSLIBA.HLP, etc, contains (3) Aliases are fundamental under ZCPR3, and, with them, a feature like this can be replaced via the FINDF (Find File) IF NUL $1 FINDF *.HLP ELSE HELP $1 FI (4) the above alias simply "simulates" the older HELP in this sense; a solution that I prefer is: IF NUL $1 MENU HELPMENU ELSE HELP $1 FI so that a (probably multiple) menu of valid HLP files with their names as the user would prefer to see them would come up instead 3. In your sample bios you have an equate symbol CPMDRV which is undefined.. I ignored it... What was it? Reply: CPMDRV is an internal buffer to my BIOS. It should not have been in the example. 4. Is there a ZEX.HLP file available... Reply: Yes. The file CMDFILES.HLP contains data on both SUB and ZEX. Peter Lyman LYMAN@JPL-VLSI WB6WXK ps I got my system via SIMTEL20