Z80 Card for Apple //e
Bill Buckels
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=370087641561&ssPageName=ADME:B:EF:US:1123
The seller has 6 available and the price of 24.99 seems really fair
especially for a new card.
ftp.apple.asimov.net has a large cpm section and includes the softcard disk
image.
For Apple owners this would seem to be the lowest cost cpm system available
for mucking with stuff like Aztec C's Z80 compiler etc. If you have a CF
drive like I do on your Apple II and use ciderpress on Windows XP, since
CP/M on the Apple II uses a DOS ordered disk image, moving CP/M programs to
the apple using "sneaker net" seems to be one of the simpler things in the
world of vintage computing.
Is there anything I should know in addition to the following... (see below)
Bill
x--- snip ---x
Microsoft's first hardware product was the Softcard, a Z80 coprocessor card
that allowed the CP/M operating system to be run on an Apple II. CP/M (which
stands for Control Program/Microprocessors, Control Program/Monitor or
Control Program for Microcomputers, depending on who you ask) was a popular
OS for Intel 8080/Zilog Z80 based systems, and ran on many early
microcomputers. It was written in the late 1970's by Gary Kildall, founder
of Digital Research, Inc.
The Softcard let the Apple II user tap into a large library of popular
software that was only available for CP/M at the time such as Wordstar,
Turbo Pascal, and dBase. Microsoft also sold several programming languages
that ran under CP/M, including BASIC, COBOL, and FORTRAN.
The Softcard did not have any memory on it, and instead used the memory
installed in the Apple II. It was compatible with most of the standard Apple
II expansion cards, such as 80-column video cards, printer cards, serial
cards, but they had to be installed in certain slots. Generally, if the
Apple II configuration worked with Apple Pascal, it would work with CP/M.
The four DIP switches on the card should all be in the down (OFF) position.
No other configuration is necessary. Once the card is installed in an unused
expansion slot, usually slot 4 or 7, booting an Apple CP/M disk will utilize
the Z80 processor on the card. CP/M version 2.2 is supplied on the system
disk included with the Softcard. Several standard CP/M file utilities are
included, such as format, copy, ed, and PIP, a file & disk utility. The
system disk also holds two versions of BASIC. MBASIC is Microsoft's standard
BASIC for CP/M. GBASIC includes extensions to make use of the Apple II's
graphics ability. There is also a progam called APDOS that copies files from
Apple DOS diskettes to Apple CP/M diskettes.
Most other Z80 cards made for the Apple II were clones of the Softcard,
although there were some exceptions.
Bill Garber
"Bill Buckels" <bbuc...@mts.net> wrote in message
news:oPGGk.23434$gY7....@newsfe19.iad...
>
> The seller has 6 available and the price of 24.99
> seems really fair especially for a new card.
>
> ftp.apple.asimov.net has a large cpm section and
> includes the softcard disk image.
This will get you closer.
ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/images/cpm/
Bill Garber from GS-Electronics
http://www.garberstreet.com
"If you wish to forget anything on the spot,
make a note that this thing is to be remembered."
(Edgar Allen Poe)
glen herrmannsfeldt
> I just purchased a Z80 card for my Apple //e on ebay.
That would be interesting.
I have an 8 inch floppy controller for the Apple II that I
never got around to using. I wonder if I have the Apple
side software to go with it.
-- glen
a2av...@gmail.com
searchable isn't someone I'd particularly care to deal with.
Notice it says "Compatible"? You'll probably get a "Z-80 Expander".
Thats the series of hardware that Memory Plus Distributors and Price
Busters (Previously Nexo Distribution, and currently MC Price
Breakers) used to sell. They came in boxes with the blue/white or blue/
silver chevron patterns on them. The quality of the stuff wasn't the
greatest but .. I will say, the stuff usually worked. It was as if
they took the AppleSeed catalog and manufactured the stuff or they
were the source for the PCBs in the AppleSeed catalog.
But there is a whole lot of software to be had, especially if you can
move the stuff in from other formats.
There's an app called The Chameleon that moves between ProDOS, Pascal,
CP/M and DOS 3.3 formats. Getting downloads onto ProDOS is pretty easy
compared to the others. There's also some of the CP/M utils that move
from DOS 3.3 and back.
Bill Buckels
<a2av...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:83e5926b-0027-46fb...@z72g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
>A seller who's picture is a graphic with their terms in it so it's not
>searchable isn't someone I'd particularly care to deal with.
Nor me. But the price is good so I am gambling. I have since heard from a
reputable source that they have been known to ship defective cards and then
replace them with defective cards but since this one says it is new I may
get lucky.
>Notice it says "Compatible"? You'll probably get a "Z-80 Expander".
Yeah, and I also noticed that a real Microsoft Softcard sells for much more,
which is what enticed me to gamble.
Strangely, I goggled "Z-80 Expander" and got vitually no info. I's as if
this never existed so I'll just wait and see what I get. Thanks for the info
on this and of course the history lesson:) which is very much appreciated.
I'll post a description of what I receive and a synopsis of how it works and
what steps I take to get this all together and put some diskimages online
after it's up and running. Provided I don't get ripped-off...
Bill
Alex Freed
>
> Nor me. But the price is good so I am gambling. I have since heard from a
> reputable source that they have been known to ship defective cards and then
> replace them with defective cards but since this one says it is new I may
> get lucky.
Most likely you will. The Microsoft z80 card (and clones) was built
using only off-the-shelf parts all of them still available. So even if
one breaks it is easy to fix.
-Alex.
Steven Hirsch
> Yeah, and I also noticed that a real Microsoft Softcard sells for much more,
> which is what enticed me to gamble.
>
> Strangely, I goggled "Z-80 Expander" and got vitually no info. I's as if
> this never existed so I'll just wait and see what I get. Thanks for the info
> on this and of course the history lesson:) which is very much appreciated.
>
> I'll post a description of what I receive and a synopsis of how it works and
> what steps I take to get this all together and put some diskimages online
> after it's up and running. Provided I don't get ripped-off...
Although a quasi-standard (and much cloned) these are slow and not terribly
flexible in terms of hardware support. Keep your eyes open for a MicroPro
StarCard (aka PCPI Applicard). They used to be quite common. It's about 3x
faster and has drivers available for a large number of 3rd party storage and
expansion cards (some written by yours truly). In particular, I wrote a
package called ProPartition that let's you allocate a virtual partition in a
ProDOS volume for use by CP/M.
I use this here to setup a CP/M area on my CF card, but it will support
absolutely any ProDOS block device.
Steve
Patrick Schaefer
> ... but since this one says it is new I may
> get lucky.
Don't expect it to work from the beginning. Bill's design has a very
critical timing, therefore most clones need some tweaking. Be prepared
to swap the 74LS367 against parts from another manufacturer. Besides
that, there are three RC delay lines that may or may not be fitted.
Many years ago a friend of mine and I each bought a Softcard clone. None
of them worked. He brought his card to me because we wanted to send them
back. I tested it in my Apple II clone -- and it worked!. I gave him
mine, he put it into his computer -- it worked too!. So just swapping
the cards fixed two systems.
A few years later I encountered the same situation with 486 PCs and Vesa
Local Bus controllers.
Patrick
Linards Ticmanis
> A few years later I encountered the same situation with 486 PCs and Vesa
> Local Bus controllers.
AKA the "Exodus" bus - plug in four cards and it dies.
--
Linards Ticmanis
Travise
wrote:
>I just purchased a Z80 card for my Apple //e on ebay.
>
>http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=370087641561&ssPageName=ADME:B:EF:US:1123
>
>The seller has 6 available and the price of 24.99 seems really fair
>especially for a new card.
>
>ftp.apple.asimov.net has a large cpm section and includes the softcard disk
>image.
<snip>
I looked at their main site atlaz.com and the same card is listed
there for $15.00 with $9.00 shipping for all you want to buy.
I have the Softcard for my IIe and made disks from the Asimov
archives. Even dBase II runs well.
Bill Buckels
"Travise" <Tra...@gaia.org> wrote in message
news:q56af4ht119buca72...@4ax.com...
>I looked at their main site atlaz.com and the same card is listed there for
>$15.00 with $9.00 shipping for all you want to buy.
Next time I will visit the ebay seller's site. Thanks. I could have saved
$10. However, since they don't ship for $9 to Alaska, Hawaii, or Puerto
Rico, I doubt if they ship to Manitoba for $9. Regardless, it's a good
thought for the Mavericks in the Great Wet South:)
Bill
Tarkin
> "Travise" <Trav...@gaia.org> wrote in message
I feel your pain ;^)
After reading your initial post, I jumped on one as well.
This card was blogged about last month here:
http://www.nekochan.net/weblog/archives/2008/09/the-mysterious.html
My setup:
Stock Laser 128 (base, internal 5.25") with
- Slot 7 enabled
- Slot 5 disabled / internal RAM enabled
- 80 col mode
My setup works best with the Apple ][ CP/M
Ver 2.20B from asimov (tho' side b is wonky...).
All of the other images I have tried (MS 2.22,
AE 4.0 & 5.1), crash after any disk access
after a short, yet random interval.
I will try some more images, and keep this thread
apprised.
Thanks to all the folks keeping Apple ][ stuff
alive, especially the ADTPro team and Asimov
sysadmin(s?).
TTFN,
Tarkin
Bill Buckels
"Tarkin" <Tark...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:9ec64546-f563-4945...@d31g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
>I feel your pain ;^) After reading your initial post, I jumped on one as
>well.
Now I feel worse:(
However, if one already has an Apple II, a Z80 card is the easiest and least
expensive way to get a CP/M 80 machine to play with. And there is more
credibility for a vintage developer like myself who professes to develop for
CP/M 80, or the Apple II, or Commodore 64 if he can point to a real machine
that he has tested his applications against as opposed to merely saying that
he has tested on an emulator. At the end of the day we do care what our
peers think, at least I do. I would like to be taken somewhat seriously when
I say my stuff works:)
For me this all ties into developing my Aztec C Museum site into its
eventual target of a full-blown retro-computing resource. It's like we
used-to say... "If you talk the talk you need to walk the walk."
But the over-riding reason is of course because it's fun!
Bill
Tarkin
> "Tarkin" <Tarkin...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:9ec64546-f563-4945...@d31g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
>
> >I feel your pain ;^) After reading your initial post, I jumped on one as
> >well.
>
> Now I feel worse:(
>
Please don't! I've paid more for less ;^)
> However, if one already has an Apple II, a Z80 card is the easiest and least
> expensive way to get a CP/M 80 machine to play with.
Sort of... I am still sorting out how to get data betwixt the A2 CP/M
and
The Rest of The World. More on that in a bit...
> And there is more
> credibility for a vintage developer like myself who professes to develop for
> CP/M 80, or the Apple II, or Commodore 64 if he can point to a real machine
> that he has tested his applications against as opposed to merely saying that
> he has tested on an emulator.
I can understand that!
> At the end of the day we do care what our
> peers think, at least I do. I would like to be taken somewhat seriously when
> I say my stuff works:)
>
Unlike what I could say about my tinkerings with x86 system code,
which would
perform flawlessly under Bochs, and then fail spectacularly on real
hardware...
> For me this all ties into developing my Aztec C Museum site into its
> eventual target of a full-blown retro-computing resource. It's like we
> used-to say... "If you talk the talk you need to walk the walk."
>
I like the site!
> But the over-riding reason is of course because it's fun!
>
> Bill
Beware the intermittancy issue:
http://mirrors.apple2.org.za/apple.cabi.net/Z80.CPM/A2.CPM.files/ap-cpm.fix.txt
The above partially explains my issue; the other part was a slightly
out-of-spec drive, fixed with Locksmith 6. With my drive speed
adjusted to 300 rpm, the system lasts a lot longer before locking
up.
So it seems like the Apple ][ CP/M and AE CP/AM images
are the way to go for this card; the AE manual for 5.1 even mentions
the 128 specifically!
Has anyone here ever worked out "UPLOAD.COM"? It seems the only
way to bootstrap serial comms (i.e. use upload.com & download to
get a better comm program into A2 cp/m).
TTFN,
Stevo
Bill Buckels
news:9ec64546-f563-4945...@d31g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
>This card was blogged about last month here:
http://www.nekochan.net/weblog/archives/2008/09/the-mysterious.html
Good documentation. Thanks for this link.
I got my card installed today.
At first I was getting all sorts of system hangs with various CP/M's that I
converted from asimov. Then I read the manual for my 8 MHZ ZIP Chip
accelerator after reading the blog piece where it mentions slowing-down the
GS. Yep, you guessed it! When I booted my //e in 1 MHZ mode it all worked
like a charm:)
>My setup works best with the Apple ][ CP/M Ver 2.20B from asimov (tho' side
>b is wonky...).
This works the same over here (just fine with ZIP chip disabled). Side B
appears to be some DOS 3.3 stuff. I just didn't bother with it.
I used ciderpress and my CF Card in my Microdrive and DISKMAKER.8 to create
the CP/M disks.
I have yet to try adding my own Aztec C CP/M programs directly to an Apple
disk image using ciderpress, mainly because I haven't had time yet, but I
have every reason to believe that it will all work just fine.
I just need to say that this was a great deal even though I paid the ebay
price rather than the lower price on this guy's website. So what! I got a
CP/M machine for under fifty bucks including shipping to Canada in less than
a week. Who can complain? Of course one needs an Apple II to start with.
BTW I've got a MIX C compiler for CP/M native mode coming soon thanks to a
kind soul who knows I like to play with C compilers. Life is good:)
Bill
Tarkin
> "Tarkin" <Tarkin...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:9ec64546-f563-4945...@d31g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
>
> >This card was blogged about last month here:
>
> http://www.nekochan.net/weblog/archives/2008/09/the-mysterious.html
>
> Good documentation. Thanks for this link.
You're welcome!
>
> I got my card installed today.
>
> At first I was getting all sorts of system hangs with various CP/M's that I
> converted from asimov. Then I read the manual for my 8 MHZ ZIP Chip
> accelerator after reading the blog piece where it mentions slowing-down the
> GS. Yep, you guessed it! When I booted my //e in 1 MHZ mode it all worked
> like a charm:)
>
> >My setup works best with the Apple ][ CP/M Ver 2.20B from asimov (tho' side
> >b is wonky...).
>
> This works the same over here (just fine with ZIP chip disabled). Side B
> appears to be some DOS 3.3 stuff. I just didn't bother with it.
>
I figured that out after much weeping and gnashing of teeth ;^)
Oh, and booting side B on an emulator...
> I used ciderpress and my CF Card in my Microdrive and DISKMAKER.8 to create
> the CP/M disks.
>
I am saving up for a Microdrive. It seems all too convenient...
> I have yet to try adding my own Aztec C CP/M programs directly to an Apple
> disk image using ciderpress, mainly because I haven't had time yet, but I
> have every reason to believe that it will all work just fine.
>
At the moment, Ciderpress mounts A2CP/M disks read-only :^(
I think in my searches through this ng, I came across the thread
where this feature was added; if I get the gist of it, RO-access was
a minor feat in of itself, so I am definitely not complaining!!
> I just need to say that this was a great deal even though I paid the ebay
> price rather than the lower price on this guy's website. So what! I got a
> CP/M machine for under fifty bucks including shipping to Canada in less than
> a week. Who can complain? Of course one needs an Apple II to start with.
>
> BTW I've got a MIX C compiler for CP/M native mode coming soon thanks to a
> kind soul who knows I like to play with C compilers. Life is good:)
>
> Bill
I'm surprised MIX C for CP/M wasn't in either Gaby's site or
retroarchive.org...
...Yup, it's in retroarchive.org 's Commercial CP/M repository, in
'Programming Languages and Environments'. According to the
filename, it's v2.0
But life indeed, is good! Well, except for a bothersome serial
port issue I'm having, but that's for another thread....
TTFN,
Tarkin
Bill Buckels
Complete documentation in PDF format including utilities documentation and utilitities diskimage.
CBFalconer
>
> Part 1.1 Type: Plain Text (text/plain)
> Encoding: quoted-printable
Please don't use html in Usenet. All correspondence is supposed to
be in pure text.
--
[mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
[page]: <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>
Try the download section.
Bill Buckels
news:48FE5CE2...@yahoo.com...
>Please don't use html in Usenet. All correspondence is supposed to be in
>pure text.
Thank you for the reminder. This was an unintentional error caused by my
absent minded use of the format menu in my outlook express and I am as
annoyed as you are. I have an idle habit of flipping between html and back
to text while staring vacantly steeped in thought. I guess I was only
half-steeped when I hit the send button. Has this happened before with my
other numerous posts or do you normally scold the thread rather than go to
private mail when a devastating indiscretion of this magnitude occurs? Sorry
for the hopelessly OT reply to your off-topic post. The devil made me do
it:)
Good link though eh? I was excited.
Bill
zzj...@gmail.com
FWIW, a few years ago I bought 3 Atlaz CP/M cards and they all work
fine AFAIK.
I didn't see any problems in light use.
They came in little blue and white boxes as mentioned.
wo...@futility.com
wrote:
>The following link may prove useful:
For a link this good what is a little HTML between friends (even
though we have never met.)
Bill Garber
Bill's post includes both text and html versions.
If you simply view news in text only, then you'd
have never noticed it included the html version.
"How about a little top-posting, scarecrow?" ;-)
Bill Garber from GS-Electronics
http://www.garberstreet.com
"If you wish to forget anything on the
spot, make a note that this thing is to
be remembered." (Edgar Allen Poe)
<wo...@futility.com> wrote in message news:ekn9g4tnl8p2uk48r...@4ax.com...
Bill Buckels
>have never met.)
<JOKE>I haven't met all my friends yet. </JOKE>
<POSITIVEREMARK>The link was too good to keep to myself I
agree.<POSITIVEREMARK>
<FLAME>I wonder what the guy that complained about the HTML thought of it.
He never did answer me when I asked the question.</FLAME>
<POSITIVEREMARK>He was probably just grumpy that day.</POSTIVEREMARK>
Bill
CBFalconer
>
... snip ...
>
> <FLAME>I wonder what the guy that complained about the HTML
> thought of it. He never did answer me when I asked the question.
> </FLAME>
I didn't think your explanation required any answer.
A2Pro
It would seem that the Yahoo! Apple CPM group is a flop. Not many
people joined and the few that did aren't into message posting.
Willi
Bill Buckels
news:cef186d3-f170-4d50...@u65g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
>It would seem that the Yahoo! Apple CPM group is a flop. Not many people
>joined and the few that did aren't into message posting.
Give it a year before you say it's a flop. This message posting keeps me for
programming and writing documentation etc. So I don't always post messages.
I have some ideas for an FAQ or two that will focus on what I am interested
in doing with Apple II and CP/M but this being a hobby and not a profession
I don't make progress on a daily basis. My profession takes priority and my
other lives.
Others are the same, so the trick is to be patient and see how it goes for a
year then say it's a flop if it is because now that you have jumped the gun
you've probably jinxed it. At least that's what my life as a commercial
fisherman and the superstitions that go with all that would say:)
Just my two cents as Oliver would say.
Bill
Willi