Ranzenbach%his-phoenix-multics.arpa@BRL.ARPA (01/17/84)
From: "Edward A. Ranzenbach" <Ranzenbach%his-phoenix-multics.arpa@BRL.ARPA>
Unfortunately you cannot run CPM on the TRS80 III without modifying the
hardware. Most CPM software is designed to load at base address 100
which is smack in the middle of the TRS80 ROM.
As an alternative may I suggest the LDOS operating system. I have been
using it for 18 months now and would call it anything but flakey. I
cannot say enough good things about it and it is the model for TRSDOS
6.0 which runs on the Model 4.
This DOS has many wins that are typically found only on large mainframe
systems. These include, but are not limited to...
o I/O to logical devices.
This allows for linking of devices together or rerouting of devices and
device filtering. An example of linking might be linking my printer to
my display so that anything sent to the display shows up on the printer
as well. With filtering I was able to write myself a small filter which
allows absolute cursor positioning from the RS232 line.
o Spooling of printed output.
The spool command can be used to reserve space in memory and on disk for
automatic spooling of printed output. The spooling of course takes
place while you are doing other things.
o A good keyboard driver.
The keyboard driver allows all ASCII characters to be input and contains
another win, type ahead. With type ahead you can enter the next command
(or several) before the one in execution finishes. In addition the
keyboard driver runs in UPPER or lower case and has a filter that allows
for single key abbreviations that can expand to a full 64 character
command line.
o A builtin communications package.
LCOMM is provided to communicate as a glasstty and perform file
transfers. At 300 baud, or lower, the incoming data can be shipped
direct to disk. For higher baud rates, I use 1200, up to 37K is
received and an XOFF is sent to the foreign system. A dump to disk can
be initiated and the trasnmission resumed by sending an XON. Outgoing
text is also subject to this flow control. The RS232 driver is capable
of configuring the port for all of the standard I/O protocols, (DSR |
^DSR, CTS | ^CTS, 7bit, 8bit, parity, 1 | 2 stop bits, etc.), and
supports the standard BREAK key, (SPACE state for 4 char transmission
times).
o JCL support.
A JCL utility is provided for BATCH style runs. It has the ability to
pass imbedded procedures parameters and has a decision capability.
o Saved machine configuration.
Once you configure your machine the way you like, (hardware
configuration and software options), you save this configuration and the
system will automatically configure itself during bootload. This has an
advantage in that I can enter my drive configuration and it will not
poll non-existant devices. This is one reason why TRSDOS 2.3 is so slow
to boot.
In addition to the points I have mentioned facilities are provided to
move source and object from almost any other DOS running on the TRS80
III. Also provided is the ability to program by using a System Vector
Table (SVC) thereby producing code that is independant of the physical
location in memory of system routines. This is great for upward
compatibly. Everything that I have mentioned thusfar is included in the
price, a mere $129.00
The system is well documented and the people at Logical Systems have
always been eager to help with any technical questions that I could
think of. In addition to all of this several support packages are
available for the system which make it even a better deal. As to
languages besides the DOS basic (LBASIC) which I never use I have found
two excellant alternatives. MISOSYS company of Vienna VA. has produced
a C compiler for the system. This is marketed through Logical Systems.
It produces Z80 macro assembler that is then assembled with the EDAS
assembler. Both of these are included in the price of the compiler,
$150.00. I have used both extensively and am quite pleased. The
version of C does however have some limitations. It does not support
floating point internally but instead references the floating point
routines in ROM. So far this has not been a real problem. It does not
support structures or typedefs. This is somewhat of an annoynance but
workable. The only serious (at least to me) limitiation that I have
seen to date is that multi-dimensioned arrays are not supported. Since
character strings in C are arrays of characters it is impossible to
define a two dimensioned array in this version of C to represent a list
of say 50 names of people. Instead a single dimension array must be
defined big enough to hold the fifty names and you must index into it
yourself. All in all though I am very pleased with both the compiler
and assembler and an additionally provided cross reference facility.
They were well worth the money. Other utilities I have bought from them
include a very good disassembler ($39.00) and a full screen text editor
($29.00).
Well I've gone on much longer than I should have. If you or anyone else
would like any other information about this unique DOS I can be
contacted at
Ranzenbach -at CISL-SERVICE-MULTICS.ARPA
... -ear
P.S. Even as I was entering this transaction I received a new release
of LDOS in the mail, at no charge (excluding the $5.00 postage and
handling charge). I'm not sure how long they will continue to offer
such updates but this one included two new commands, which were
previously available for a price. These included a new "Quick Format
Backup" command which formatts a disk and makes its backup copy in one
pass. Also included was the FED file editor which displays sectors of a
file in fullscreen format and allows direct to disk editing in both
ASCII and HEX mode. All at no extra charge... -earabc%brl-bmd@sri-unix.UUCP (01/17/84)
From: BRINT <abc@brl-bmd> I certainly do not mean to denigrate LDOS or any other product for the TRS-80 (tm). However, for $10.00 more, one can get CP/M 2.2 and the necessary hardware modification (it plugs into the Z80 socket which then plugs into it) from Omikron. Other competitors have similar products. CP/M supports features similar to those described for LDOS and, in addition, opens up a world of literally hundreds of megabytes of PUBLIC DOMAIN software available for the asking from several sources. abc