SECRIST%OAK.SAINET.MFENET@LLL-MFE.ARPA (11/27/86)
From: <SECRIST%OAK.SAINET.MFENET@LLL-MFE.Arpa> (Richard C. Secrist) Date: Wed, 26-NOV-1986 21:12 EST To: INFO-APPLE@BRL.ARPA Message-ID: <[OAK.SAINET.MFENET].C59E6AA0.008F88DC.SECRIST> Header-Disclaimer: I don't like my headers either ! X-VMS-Mail-To: APPLE I second Dick's comments on PCPI and Laing, my experiences were much like his own. Although I don't believe PCPI even maufactures the Applicard their support is outstanding. I contrast that support to lousy support I've had from Commodore... have your company buy the PC stuff from PCPI - they stand behind it quite well. Anyway the OEM kit is a little disappointing. If you're non-technical don't bother, it's all hardcore meat and source code - but a godsend to serious Applicard hackers. Also I got them to send me a copy of BYE and XMODEM that worked for the cost of the disk. PCPI also sells/makes-available the upgrades release of CP/M (2.0) if you don't have that (e.g. 1.6a, which is what I got with the TurdStar packages I picked up cheap). Laing Electronics still sells Applicards and the piggyback RAM drives. I got a 128K RAM disk board: it's one of the best investments I've ever made for my Apple. Buy one ! And from Laing - they know what they're doing, they do it themselves on their own BBS and have for many moons (they were a PCPI beta site), they're prices aren't half bad, they can answer technical questions in utter detail if you're willing to wait until the right guy is in, they answer their phone, ship UPS, and they take VISA. They even repair PCPI boards ! Recommended ! I don't remember exactly - but a 128K RAMdisk ran me like $90. Laing Electronics, Inc. 10382 Stanford Avenue, Suite E-203 Garden Grove, CA 92640 Voice: 714/534-4216 BTW, the BBS has a ZCPR configured for the 2.0 Applicard CP/M release, the XMODEM, and other stuff. The 6 MHz Z80 wins, but communications can be a bit funky due to the fact that you use the card's RAM for the address space and you have to do the peek/poke stuff to get to the Apple's address space. The XMODEM does it... has anyone hacked this into a PCPI Kermit yet ? rcs SECRIST%OAK.SAInet.MFEnet@LLL-MFE.Arpa
Ralph.Hyre@IUS2.CS.CMU.EDU (12/01/86)
>The 6 MHz Z80 wins, but communications can be a bit funky due to the >fact that you use the card's RAM for the address space and you have >to do the peek/poke stuff to get to the Apple's address space. The >XMODEM does it... has anyone hacked this into a PCPI Kermit yet ? One solution here is a CP/M kermit which uses MODEM7 overlays/inserts, which any kermit hacker could do. A much ore useful solution is to write a driver for the various serial cards. I'll have to dust off my OEM package after Christmas to see what I can do about writing a driver that uses the Apple pascal firmware protocol (which most cards have anyway.) Everything except BREAK can be dealt with at this level, and I don't believe the CP/M BIOS cares much about BREAK anyway). A PCPI-specific hacking of comm packages will be just that and won't be of much help to anybody. With a serial card-specific driver we should be able to run ANY generic CP/M kermit (they typically use RDR: and PUN:). This is something the PC clone people have learned.