HAAR@gmr.COM (RLH) (03/23/88)
Phillip Keen recently questioned the advantages of upgrading to CP/M Plus (3.0) over 2.2 . Since Lee Thomison spoke (typed?) out in favor of version 2.2, I thought I would add my views in the other direction. I have been using version 3.0 for about three years and would not switch back to 2.2 for any reason. I run an S-100 bus system with 192K of RAM. advantages of 3.0: - supports banked memory - put much of the system in bank 0, TPA in bank 1 - increase TPA space ( 48K to 60K in my system) - allows BIOS additions without decreasing TPA space - time/date stamping of files - disk buffering in banked memory - cleaner command set (in my opinion) - residnet system extensions (RSXs) allow loadable device rivers, system extensions, etc. much like TSR's in MS-DOS. I must admit that everything is not wondeful. I use a CCP replacement call CCP+ to have an improved shell and a SideKick-like utility called Write-Hand-Man. Many of the advantages above have been implemented in other ways my various manufacturers or PD software writers, but not in any standard fashion. CP/M 2.2 is the standard work-horse version. If you don't have extra memory or don't want the features made possible in 3.0 by memory banking, switching to 3.0 isn't worth much. ZCPR3 provides a nicer environment than either one. I bought ZCPR3.3 and tried it out. But I decided to stay with CP/M 3.0 because the disk caching and larger TPA made lot's of stuff faster. There is supposed to be a version of ZCPR coming out this spring that runs on CP/M 3.0. This desires some attention. I may go that route myself. Ther have been some complaints of incompatibilities between CP/M version 2.2 and 3.0 . I run many commercial programs written for 2.2 with no problems. The only place I have seen any is with some PD software that goes to the BIOS directly or makes assumptions about the file structures beyond what is provided at the BDOS level. SD is the only program I use that had this problem and it was fixed in later versions. There is also something called 22RSX that claims to provide complete version 2.2 compatiblity if you need it. I haven't had call to use it, so cannot comment. For me CP/M 3.0 is the way to go. For anyone else - make up your own minds. But first ask yourself what you want the system to do and what is important to you. Bob Haar HAAR@GMR.COM ( CSNET or ARPANET)