[alt.folklore.computers] Joan Riff and Z80M

max@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (Max Southall) (10/25/90)

Not liking Joan's attitude as a reason for using and not paying for her
CP/M and Z80 emulation package sounds like a rather convenient
justification for taking advantage and saving bucks. If you feel you can't
use her stuff in good conscience, don't use it at all. That's like saying
it's OK to rob banks because some of them invest in South Africa! Sheesh.

References: <1990Oct19.204926.17576@techbook.com> <PLTFR2w163w@ijpc.UUCP> <6435@plains.NoDak.edu>

wilker@descartes.math.purdue.edu (Clarence Wilkerson) (10/26/90)

Actually version 3.10 of Z80MU is officially marked "public domain", so
one can use it with a clear conscience. If you have a V20 chip, I posted
to GENIE and SIMTEL20 a package in Turbo Pascal that emulates a CP/M
environment. It goes to more trouble than many of the early emulators
to get the calls right.. for example SD and DISK76 work correctly. I believe
that there are some undocumented manipulations of fields in the FCB bu BDOS
which are not handled, so the WORDSTAR install program, written before random
i/o, manipulated these fields directly, and fails on my emulation.
The package was distributed with source as V20BOOT.

Clarence Wilkerson

ianj@ijpc.UUCP (Ian Justman) (10/27/90)

max@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (Max Southall) writes:

> Not liking Joan's attitude as a reason for using and not paying for her
> CP/M and Z80 emulation package sounds like a rather convenient
> justification for taking advantage and saving bucks. If you feel you can't
> use her stuff in good conscience, don't use it at all. That's like saying
> it's OK to rob banks because some of them invest in South Africa! Sheesh.
> 
> References: <1990Oct19.204926.17576@techbook.com> <PLTFR2w163w@ijpc.UUCP> <64

That's not necessarily true.  She puts her shareware fees much
too high for it to be with most shareware which goes from
$15-~$90.  Like I said in an earlier message, it isn't worth THAT
much.   If you consider unreasonably high shareware fees "not
liking Joan's attitude", so be it.  I consider her attitude as
only partly why I wouldn't buy it.  It's the unreasonably high
shareware fee that she asks which is not convincing me not to buy
it.

I guess the reason yo find it a convenient reason is because it's
so easily obtained.  It's distributed on the "try-before-you-buy"
basis that is shareware.  Also, just wondering, did you yourself
pay the $150 she asks for it?  Or did you find out about how much
she wants and then decide not to use it?

bob@grebyn.com (Robert A. Baumann) (10/29/90)

In article <1990Oct24.233232.11580@mthvax.cs.miami.edu>, max@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (Max Southall) writes:
> Not liking Joan's attitude as a reason for using and not paying for her
> CP/M and Z80 emulation package sounds like a rather convenient
> justification for taking advantage and saving bucks. If you feel you can't
> use her stuff in good conscience, don't use it at all. That's like saying
> it's OK to rob banks because some of them invest in South Africa! Sheesh.
> 
> References: <1990Oct19.204926.17576@techbook.com> <PLTFR2w163w@ijpc.UUCP> <6435@plains.NoDak.edu>


Er... This is a fascinating discussion. What's intriguing to me is that
Z80MU *DOES* support the "set DMA" call perfectly well! Furthermore,
every assembler and compiler and loader that we've come across works
perfectly well under Z80MU. At least, they work perfectly well under
LEGITIMATE copies of Z80MU.

Is it possible that somebody is using a corrupted copy of Z80MU? That's
the only logical explanation that I can think of. We have seen quite a few
corrupted copies out there. Who knows how or why it happens, but that's
the breaks of Electronic Distribution. Once you let it out, you can't
control what happens to it.

I'm setting the record straight because I own Z80MU. Not a copy of it. The
*REAL* Z80MU that Joan Riff wrote for me 4 years ago and that I rewrote
myself. That's how I know that a *REAL* copy supports CP/M 2.2 perfectly
well, even down to redirecting hardware I/O port addresses to 16-bit
IBM PC port addresses for you fanatics who *REALLY* want to run a CP/M
version of KERMIT or whatever.

Drop me a line. I'll be glad to help to identify legitimate copies of
Z80MU 3.10 (the last public domain version) and Z80MU 5.2b (the
current, commercial version).

There are thousands of folks running *LOTS* of off-the-wall CP/M software
with Z80MU, and just about everything works perfectly well for them.

Gosh, maybe there *ARE* benefits to buying a legitimate copy...

  Bob Baumann
  Computerwise Consulting Services
  P.O. Box 813, McLean, VA 22101
  (703) 450-7175