SAGE@LL.ARPA (03/29/88)
Dave Goodman posted a message recommending ZCPR33 as the CP/M upgrade of choice. As the author of that code, I wholeheartedly concur. There were some statements made in that message, however, that I would like to correct and/or amplify. >> Z33 is public domain; you will find it on a number of RCPM's (Remote >> CP/M System) around the country, or, you can buy it from Echelon, Inc. >> (at a modest cost) in either an auto-install version, which works on >> most, but not all, systems, or a manual install version (which makes >> for a more versatile installation). To do the manual installation, >> you will need a working knowlege of the insides of cp/m, and some >> modest ability with z80 assembly language. I believe you will also >> need the ZAS assembler, also available at modest cost from Echelon. First, Z33 is NOT really public domain; it is copyrighted by me and by Echelon. However, there is no royalty charge for personal (noncommercial) use. For that use it is distributed on many remote access computer systems, including my own Z-Node. There is a license fee for use of Z33 with a commercial product. Second, the autoinstall versions of Z System (combined ZCPR and ZRDOS) that are about to be released (NZCOM for CP/M 2.2 systems and Z3Plus for CP/M 3 systems) are far MORE VERSATILE than a manual installation, as well as being completely automatic. It is true that there are some computers on which they will not work (though not very many, and on some of those it is very hard to get a manually installed version to work either), but when they do work you get a system in which the operating system features (and corresponding operating system size) can be varied dynamically to meet your requirements, on a permanent basis or on a command-by-command basis. For normal operation you can have a complete Z System with all the bells and whistles at a cost of about 6K of TPA space. But when you need to run a memory-hungry program, the operating system can be made to shrink (all the way back to plain CP/M if desired) to provide the extra memory and then expand again when that application has completed. The main difficulty encountered with these systems is that some configuration utility programs provided by the computer manufacturer that work by performing absolute modifications to data in the BIOS often will not work properly under NZCOM or Z3Plus. Those utilities can be fixed, if necessary. Usually, however, they are used only rarely, and you can shut off the automatic Z System long enough to use them. I will be speaking at the Trenton Computer Fair on these new systems. They will include, by the way, version 3.4 of ZCPR, which includes a number of interesting and useful new features. Z34 will not be made available over remote systems; it will be available only as a commercial product but at a very modest cost. -- Jay Sage