secrist@msdsws.enet.dec.com ("Murphy's beta test site.") (02/19/90)
Greetings. I'm new to the H/Z-100, having recently acquired an all-in-one rig with 192K on what is probably the old motherboard and V2.5 of the monitor ROM. All I've really got for sure is a bootable V2.21 of MS-DOS, an ancient user manual circa ZDOS v1.1, and the service manual. So now I've turned to this list for help. What is the deal with the 320K diskettes ? I guess MS-DOS V1.n spoke this and Zenith was conservative about upgrading to 9-sectors ? I seem to be able to read and write 360K disks formatted elsewhere, but could I be trashing these disks -- or am I okay ? What is the best way to upgrade my O/S software and acquire doc ? Will this get me 360K, or can I format to 9-sector some other way ? What is the best way to expand RAM ? Disk ? How do you 'gen such things into the O/S if you pop them into the S-100 ? I guess the RAM gets noticed, but are there verboten things ? What about user groups ? Is there still an H/Z Users Group ? Outside of SIMTEL-20, are their caches of software in the wings ? How about attaining IBM-PC compatability ? I guess the H/Z-100 at MS-DOS V2.21 is still a well-behaved, BDOS call driven beast, versus the nasty rule-breaking PC flock who call things directly. I don't like breaking the rules either, but there is a lot of nice software I'd like to take advantage of. Are "Scottie Boards" and such compatable with S-100 RAM expansion ? What's the best way to attack this ? Lots of what I want to run dies on "wild interrupts" -- is there a way I can support or trap more of them even if the video is a bit strange ? What do y'all recommend ? You see where I'm coming from. Any and all advice is appreciated. Regards, rcs
GUBBINS@TOPS20.RADC.AF.MIL (Gern) (02/20/90)
To briefly answer your questions: Z-DOS and PC-DOS V1 (Both really versions of MS-DOS V1) only handle 320K floppies. MS-DOS & PC-DOS (really a version of MS-DOS) V2 and up handle either 320K or 360K floppies. MS-DOS V2 for the Z-100 defaults to 320K unless you "FORMAT /9" to format at 360K. MS-DOS V3 for the Z-100 defaults to 360K unless you "FORMAT /8" to format at 320K. Note that Z-100s with Boot Monitor less that V2.5 will not boot from a 360K system disk, but you are okay. What is the part number of your motherboard ? 85-xxxx-x, it can be seen by removing the video board. There are lots of RAM upgrade info floating around. "Gen", what's that (-: Seriously, if you have a fancy card in the S-100 either you can load a device driver with CONFIG.SYS for it, run a TSR from AUTOEXEC.BAT to deal with it, or just let the application program drive it directly. Heath Users Group (HUG) has monthly REMark magazines, and Z-100 Lifeline is a VERY nice all Z-100 journal that is bi-monthly. The Scottie Board thing (I have schematics if you like to wire wrap to save yourself ~$200) is used with HUG's ZPC V2 software that does a nice job of PC CGA emulation. ZPC alone (HUG ~$40.00) without the hardware support works a lot of the time. Cheers, Gern -------