hugh@hcrvx1.UUCP (Hugh Redelmeier) (11/11/86)
I have just spent some time putting up the CP/M-80 emulator on my 1040ST. I have found the emulator seems quite well done. But there are some problems with it. In the Z80, there are two flags for purposes of BCD arithmetic: the H flag is for recording "half-carry" and the N flag is for recording whether the last operation was an add or a subtract. An AND instruction sets both N and H flags. Similarly, an OR instruction clears both. (In the 8080, there is no N flag, and both the AND and OR instructions clear H.) In the emulator, the AND and OR instructions seem to leave the N and H flags alone. So it does not match the Z80, or even the 8080. Although this seems unimportant, I only discovered it because it caused the program that I was porting to fail. The emulator seems to support only floppy drives. I could not get it to use a RAM disk (I use the Intersect RAM disk at the moment). Since the disks it uses must have a CP/M file system, I don't wish to try my hard disk. Even on a floppy, it only supports a single side! This makes the emulator much less useful on a system with only one floppy drive. The make_cpm command (to start the bootstrapping process of creating the first CP/M disk) prompts at the start. DO NOT put the blank disk in at this point. It needs to fetch a file from the TOS disk (which must be on a floppy, I think). Put the blank disk in at the second prompt. If you do put in a blank disk the first time, you will not get a diagnostic. The machine will just fall asleep for a minute and then return to the desktop. I sure wish that the TOSCPM and CPMTOS commands (for transferring files between TOS and CP/M file systems) would take ambiguous file names. As it is, a command must be issued for every file transferred. I don't see a way to change what terminal the console emulates. My ST is replacing a Kaypro II. But since the Kaypro emulates an ADM-3 (more or less) and the ST emulates a VT52 (more or less), I cannot trivially move my programs. (Legality is another problem, but I am not talking about copyrighted programs.) The emulator is not quite good enough to be useful to me. Just a few enhancements could change this. Now that this program is free, I wonder how much support will be provided by Atari or the original developer (a company in West Germany). Hugh Redelmeier (416) 922-1937 utzoo!hcr!hugh
pete@utcsscb.UUCP (11/12/86)
In article <1429@hcrvx1.UUCP> hugh@hcrvx1.UUCP writes: >I have just spent some time putting up the CP/M-80 emulator on my >1040ST. I have found the emulator seems quite well done. But there >are some problems with it. > >The emulator seems to support only floppy drives. I could not get >it to use a RAM disk (I use the Intersect RAM disk at the moment). >Since the disks it uses must have a CP/M file system, I don't wish >to try my hard disk. Even on a floppy, it only supports a single >side! This makes the emulator much less useful on a system with >only one floppy drive. I have had no problems with running the emulator off of a ramdisk. Using the inidir.com program included in the package, I have been able to reinitialize ram disks previously set up under TOS for CPM. The ramdisk I am using is one I downloaded off of a local BBS, and has no documentation, so I do not know which one it is . It is a fixed 600k Ram disk. In an in store experiment, I have tried running the emulator off of 1 partition of the Atari 20mb Hard Drive, with seeming success. (Just imagine: A system with Magic Sac, the CPM emulator and the ST, all running off of different partitions of the same Hard disk!) >The make_cpm command (to start the bootstrapping process of creating >the first CP/M disk) prompts at the start. DO NOT put the blank >disk in at this point. It needs to fetch a file from the TOS disk >(which must be on a floppy, I think). Put the blank disk in at the >second prompt. If you do put in a blank disk the first time, you >will not get a diagnostic. The machine will just fall asleep for a >minute and then return to the desktop. Further advice. people with 1040st's should boot off of a SINGLE SIDED diskette before attempting the installation program. This seems to make a diffence. > >Hugh Redelmeier (416) 922-1937 >utzoo!hcr!hugh ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Pete Santangeli pete@utcsscb@utcs psantangei on BIX