CSvax:Pucc-H:Physics:piner@pur-ee.UUCP (11/02/83)
I'm putting my reply here, instead of mail since others might find it interesting. LDOS supports 5" inch drives up to 80 track, double sided, double density. That is 710k free space (240 files, max). The manual also says it will go up to 96 tracks if you supply the driver. LDOS also supports 8" inch drives, 77 track, double density, double sided. The LDOS you get from Radio Shack is the same as what you get from Logical systems for Model I or III or IV. The original Lobo version had different hardware drivers to take advantage of the LX-80's superior hardware, but the user interface was the same. The MAX-80 version is model III compatible. There will be a version 6 for the MAX-80 "soon". In other LDOS news, they say in their latest Journal that version 6.0 is now being sold in source form to other hardware OEMs. They didn't say who. Since LDOS is so far advanced over CP/M, it could displace CP/M to a certain extent. It allows non-standard drivers to be added by the user (no hacking a BIOS), and it supports I/O redirection. It also is almost device independent. You can open a device from FORTRAN, and read or write from it with standard I/O routines. Version 6 is driven through the RST instruction, with a standardized set of system request codes passed in the accumulator. So it is possible to write machine independent code that will work on any machine running LDOS version 6.0 (or later). Logical Systems also sells a disk of fixes to a number popular Radio Shack programs to make them work correctly under LDOS. My own interest is FORTRAN, and the disk has patches to make my old model I FORTRAN system run on either model I or III or the MAX-80. Please note, Model III FORTRAN, sold by Radio Shack will not work under model III LDOS. You will need to patch the model I software to get it too work. The disk of patches can be bought from Logical Systems for $10. Since they don't hold the copyrights, they have to sell the patches at cost. They do it as a service for their customers (it also helps sales). But, I don't see model I FORTRAN in the new Radio Shack catalog. So I don't know if you can still get model I FORTRAN. However, since Radio Shack is now selling LDOS, they may have a version that will work correctly by now. This leads me to answer the question on Pascal. I assume that you mean Alcor Pascal, not Tiny Pascal (which I don't see in the catalog any more). First, it is NOT for model I and III. It is for model I OR III. Since I have a couple old machines, and two new MAX-80's, I was real mad that I would have to buy the system twice! It does produce P-code. But knowing how these things go, I would not expect the P-code to be portable to any machine which doesn't have Alcor's runtime system. Also note, the system is only sold as a package. You have to buy the editor. You have to buy the compiler and the native code generator, etc. You can not buy it one part at a time. I ask them if I could get the compiler, editor, etc. in P-code, and buy just the run time support for each machine. (I will be switching operating systems to LDOS 6 as soon as it is out for the MAX-80.) NO WAY! The whole point of the system is portabilty, yet you can't port their compiler, editor, etc. The only machine dependent stuff should be in the operating system. Everything else should be portable. There I go, sounding like one of those damned UNIX people again. Anyway, the compiler is a solid piece of software. I does produce good code. It is a full compiler, with a few extras, such as strings. But it is not compatible with the relocateble binary produced by Microsoft FORTRAN or MACRO-80. Hence, you have to load them, create an absolute binary, and the give the Pascal code addresses of the routines, similar to the USR calls in Basic. Damn! They do sell an assembler, if you want to buy the whole C language package, which means another copy of the editor, runtime support, etc. And their assembler uses an extended Intel mnemonic rather than the Zilog Z-80 mnemonic code used by RS in EDAS, and common in other RS assembly applications. So Alcor Pascal may be usefull if you plan to stick with one machine, and never up grade the operating system, and write everything in Pascal. Otherwise, keep you money till they wake up and do things right. Finally a minor flame. As many machines as there are out there, and as long as Radio Shack has been in the business, there should be a general langauge system by now. LDOS can run code with a large degree of machine independence with the SVC type system calls. Having a set of compilers to chose from, each producing compatible code and using a common runtime support library , would be a big boon to programers, and would increase productivity greatly. It would be a major selling point. Why can't they see that?! I can only hope that someone out there takes the bull buy the horns and produces the right system of compilers. Rich Piner Purdue Physics Dept.