VT100KAY.LBR problems
Carol Coates
Greetings. I must have taken a mouthfull of that stupidity-potion.
That file, VT100KAY.AZM, is *ALREADY* uncompressed! Sorry about
that last post, folks.
It hit me, after I had a snack... lack of calories, I guess ;-)
Take care.
Carol Coates
Greetings. I downloaded a _lot_ of stuff from the CP/M part
of Simtel and all the files worked perfectly - except the file
I really wanted :-)
The file is called VT100KAY.LBR and I can't get it to work.
The library contains a VT100 emulator for the Kaypro series.
When I exctract all the sub-files, I get this:
VT100KAY.BUG - a listing of current bugs.
VT1200.COM - an assembled version to run at 1200 baud
VT2400.COM - an assembled version to run at 2400 baud
VT100KAY.DOC - documentation
VT100KAY.AZM - this is the source AND THE PROBLEM!
NOW, I can use ZFILER or LT or VLU104 and display the contents
of the above file but I can NOT get the darn thing to create
a ASM file. No matter what I try.... arghhhh! VLU gives me
"invalid format", ZFILER appears to do the job but does not,
and LT just shows me the contents - no matter what I tell it!
(LT A8:VT100KAY.AZM A8: is supposed to extract the file - and
this method works on other files - but on this particular file,
it just displays the listing)
help... help... am I doing something very stupid or is the
file not in the correct format?
Take care.
P.S. I would appreciate just a "fix" - my mailbox is small and
my sysop is not very happy when it overflows... :-(
Klaus Ambrass
> Greetings. I must have taken a mouthfull of that stupidity-potion.
> That file, VT100KAY.AZM, is *ALREADY* uncompressed! Sorry about
> that last post, folks.
Well, I had that prob myself once.
Way back then, it was due to the packing format applied by who ever packed
the file in the first place.
I have an Amstrad cpc6128 and found that sometimes, when you CRUNCH a
file you can UNCR it, but not UNCRLZH it. I know it sounds loony, but the
two programs are in fact different.
Maybe you have them same prob here. I dunno.
You might try to TYPE the file and look at the displayed content. If
you get something containing a string of text that looks like a filename within
the 100 bytes or so, it probably IS still packed - one way or the other.
Perhaps your file is simply renamed? (probably tried that already, but
don't blame me for telling you the obvious though :-))
Oh, another stupid thing I got worked out only last month is that
SOME people (Amsters) really use the PC's LHARC packing format to crunch the
files they want packed. I found that a small tool - LHRD - can extract files
from PC's *.LZH to CP/M standard files.
If you still have a troublesome file then Kill The Bastard!
> It hit me, after I had a snack... lack of calories, I guess ;-)
We'll come back to that later.
> Take care.
Now, make up your mind!
--
<Klaus> B-) | aka: an...@diku.dk |
+-------------------------------------------------------| Department Of |
|"If you're free tonight, call me, | Computer Science, |
| and I'll come around and tie you up again." | Univ. of Copenhagen |
Ian Justman
> cwc...@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Carol Coates) writes:
>
>
> > Greetings. I must have taken a mouthfull of that stupidity-potion.
> > That file, VT100KAY.AZM, is *ALREADY* uncompressed! Sorry about
> > that last post, folks.
>
> Well, I had that prob myself once.
> Way back then, it was due to the packing format applied by who ever packed
> the file in the first place.
> I have an Amstrad cpc6128 and found that sometimes, when you CRUNCH a
> file you can UNCR it, but not UNCRLZH it. I know it sounds loony, but the
^^^^^^^^^^^ FALSE, FALSE, FALSE!!!!!!
> two programs are in fact different.
(flamethrower on maximum and enjoying it!!!!)
YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY DEAD WRONG!!!!!!
I USE UCRLZH.COM TO UNCRUNCH ?Z? FILES ALL THE TIME!!!!!!
(flamethrower brought down to minimum)
IF YOU WANT TO MAKE ME EAT MY WORDS, TRY IT!!! I know I'm right
about this one. I know because I've used it. Have YOU tried it?
UCRLZH11.COM _WILL_ uncrunch ?Q?, ?Z?, and ?Y? files. What you
just said is one of the biggest crocks I've ever seen!
(flamethrower off)
Sorry about that. I had to get you with this one with the
fullest possible permissible setting on my flamethrower without
cussing (if it WAS permitted, I would have said and/or called you
some real doozies). Mainly because I use the program ALL THE
TIME and I _KNOW_ what it can do.
Ewen McNeill
> an...@diku.dk (Klaus Ambrass) writes:
>
> > Well, I had that prob myself once.
> > Way back then, it was due to the packing format applied by who ever packed
> > the file in the first place.
> > I have an Amstrad cpc6128 and found that sometimes, when you CRUNCH a
> > file you can UNCR it, but not UNCRLZH it. I know it sounds loony, but the
> ^^^^^^^^^^^ FALSE, FALSE, FALSE!!!!!!
> > two programs are in fact different.
>
> (flamethrower on maximum and enjoying it!!!!)
>
> YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY DEAD WRONG!!!!!!
>
> I USE UCRLZH.COM TO UNCRUNCH ?Z? FILES ALL THE TIME!!!!!!
>
same problems as Klaus has had -- I also own a CPC6128. The problem he
describes is exactly true, for the CPC6128. There is a bug (somewhere)
in the Bios. I am going to have to go reverse-engineering it (there is
no Bios source available to my knowledge).
FTR, I have successfully used UCRLZH to uncrunch files (.?Z?), so it
definately does work. This was not off the floppy drives on the
Amstrad, however (this is where the bug is).
So the real answer is that you are both right.... :-) Sortof.
> IF YOU WANT TO MAKE ME EAT MY WORDS, TRY IT!!! I know I'm right
> about this one. I know because I've used it. Have YOU tried it?
> UCRLZH11.COM _WILL_ uncrunch ?Q?, ?Z?, and ?Y? files. What you
> just said is one of the biggest crocks I've ever seen!
If you own an Amstrad, and you haven't had any problems, I would love to
hear what you do. Otherwise, YOU don't know exactly what you are
talking about.
May I suggest, in future, that you don't jump in with all guns blazing
(to mix metaphors), and instead find out why the person made the
statement?
Also, FTR, the reason that one program works (UNCR), and another doesn't
(UNCRLZH), seems to be connected with the amount of register
preservation they do, the amount of use they make of the extra Z80
registers, what they actually call, and a few other things.
For instance, unzip (David Goodenough) doesn't work too well on the Amstrad
drives for some reason. It works fine off my Ram disk (the patch for
which appears to have been made (autoinstall program) at a higher level
than the bug) however. [BTW, this is nothing against David's program --
it SHOULD work perfectly on the Amstrad, and does on other systems]
Unarc (I forget who wrote it at the moment), on the other hand, works
perfectly. I looked through the source, and saw lots of places where it
used the extra registers very carefully, and preserved them all the way
through (interupts off), etc. The comments mentioned problems with
extra register usage on "various computers".
Further information, (for those with advice rather than flames!), it
appears that everytime this bug occurs the same piece of code/whatever
is copied into the disk-sector buffer, rather than the sector required.
Only 128 bytes long, but morethan enough to scamble anything that is
supposed to be being decompressed. I discovered this when one of my editors
(ZDE - I don't have any source to check what it does) had the same problem.
One more little thing to note, the problem doesn't occur all the time,
and as far as I can tell it happens at random. This cannot be true, but
I haven't discovered what causes it yet. One possible lead is that
sometimes a file will fail, and then if the operation is tried again
after resetting the drives, it will work. [This is CP/M+, BTW, the
drives are supposed to auto-reset when needed]
Sorry, everyone, that this has got this long. It was intended to rebut
the flame, but the opportunity to seek others opinion on the problem
couldn't be missed.
Any useful suggestions are welcomed, and any off-the-cuff flames will be
dealt with in a suitable manner (ie, probably ignored!).
--
Ewen McNeill. Email: ew...@actrix.gen.nz
Antony Warbrooke
As I come from New Zealand I don't really want to make any large Toll
Calls to the States and was wondering if anyone knew of any place in
N.Z. that would have a copy of this file???
Any help would be most appreciated!!!
Thanks in advance!
Ian Justman
> And YOU don't really know what you are talking about. I have had the
> same problems as Klaus has had -- I also own a CPC6128. The problem he
> describes is exactly true, for the CPC6128. There is a bug (somewhere)
> in the Bios. I am going to have to go reverse-engineering it (there is
> no Bios source available to my knowledge).
(stuff deleted along the way)
> FTR, I have successfully used UCRLZH to uncrunch files (.?Z?), so it
> definately does work. This was not off the floppy drives on the
> Amstrad, however (this is where the bug is).
>
> Sorry, everyone, that this has got this long. It was intended to rebut
> the flame, but the opportunity to seek others opinion on the problem
> couldn't be missed.
>
> Any useful suggestions are welcomed, and any off-the-cuff flames will be
> dealt with in a suitable manner (ie, probably ignored!).
My deepest apologies. I guess I assumed that all BIOSes were
pretty much well-behaved and it seems to be restricted to some
BIOSes. Also, it probably has something to do with the fact that
those computers are running CP/M Plus, which I've heard can be
flakey at times. That's why I stick with my CP/M 2.2 stuff
(highly uprated w/ZCPR33 and stuff like that...)
Ewen McNeill
about the UUCP psuedo-domain, and just bounces the stuff. Sorry,
everyone else.]
In article <kFN4y...@ijpc.UUCP> ia...@ijpc.UUCP (Ian Justman) writes:
> [In reply to a flame rebuttal from ew...@actrix.gen.nz (Ewen McNeill)]
> My deepest apologies. I guess I assumed that all BIOSes were
> pretty much well-behaved and it seems to be restricted to some
> BIOSes. Also, it probably has something to do with the fact that
> those computers are running CP/M Plus, which I've heard can be
> flakey at times. That's why I stick with my CP/M 2.2 stuff
> (highly uprated w/ZCPR33 and stuff like that...)
Your apology is accecpted. I have heard a fairly large number of BIOSes
which have problems with various things - most written for Z80 machines
in the days when 8080 code was the most common, so they assumed that
they had the extra registers to themselves. This is no longer true.
I doubt that the fact they are running CP/M+ has anything to do with it.
CP/M+ seems okay to me, most of the time. Occassionaly it fails to relog
in a disk, but that is only because of the way it detects a new disk
(directory checksumming). No where near as much hassle as logging in
disks under 2.2!
The trouble with the Amstrad implementation of CP/M 2.2 is that they
used a graphics screen (all the machine has - bit map 16K), which steals
most of the useful memory. There is only about 42K TPA - hardly enough
to do anything.
Paul Martin
> And YOU don't really know what you are talking about. I have had the
> same problems as Klaus has had -- I also own a CPC6128. The problem he
> describes is exactly true, for the CPC6128. There is a bug (somewhere)
> in the Bios. I am going to have to go reverse-engineering it (there is
> no Bios source available to my knowledge).
Are you sure you are running the CPM+ supplied with your 6128?
> For instance, unzip (David Goodenough) doesn't work too well on the Amstrad
> drives for some reason. It works fine off my Ram disk (the patch for
> which appears to have been made (autoinstall program) at a higher level
> than the bug) however. [BTW, this is nothing against David's program --
> it SHOULD work perfectly on the Amstrad, and does on other systems]
Voila! Non-standard system. I have an Amstrad CPC 464 with 512K
banked RAM, and the 6128 ROM. I have used David Goodenough's
UNZIP program every day for the last 9 months without a single
problem, even with 200K ZIP files.
I have just tried UCRLZH11 on a ?Q?, a ?Z? and a ?Y? file with no
problems.
May I hazard a guess that you're running ZCPR or similar, or
something else non-standard?
--
Paul Martin ..!uunet!tharr!pm.nowster | CP/M systems never die - they
pm.no...@tharr.uucp (pm...@tharr.uucp) | just get more BIOSed with age.
<-- tharr *free* public access to Usenet in the UK -->
Ewen McNeill
> Ewen McNeill (ew...@actrix.gen.nz) wrote these words:
> > Amstrad CPC6128 running CP/M+]
>
> Voila! Non-standard system. I have an Amstrad CPC 464 with 512K
> banked RAM, and the 6128 ROM. I have used David Goodenough's
> UNZIP program every day for the last 9 months without a single
> problem, even with 200K ZIP files.
does sound as though there is something special about your banked ram,
or something. Do you unzip things off the ram drive (I would do this
anyway because it is faster -- I only discovered the problem when I had
a small ram drive (one bank, instead of the usual two))? This has no
problems. It is only off the floppy disks, and it needs to be a pretty
big file (in another post I mentioned it happening in 15 128-byte blocks
out of about 2000 in a file) for the "random" chance to happen.
> May I hazard a guess that you're running ZCPR or similar, or
> something else non-standard?
I am running CP/M+, as supplied, with a serial interface (no special
patch), and a ram disk (and the patch for it). The ram
disk consists of both banks of ram, although I have had the same problem
with just one bank plugged in. I think I may even have had problems
without any ram plugged in, but the patch installed. The serial
interface is a possibility, I guess -- who else of those with problems
has a serial interface attached to their system?
This does make me think of the ram patch as being the problem, so I have
started to disassemble it again. If anyone is interested in helping
work on this, you will need a copy of PATCHER.COM (out of the ram disk
rom), and a copy of DazzleStar. I will send a copy of the DazzleStar
temporary file, which defines the symbols, etc.
Anyway, it is amazing how many Amstrad users there are out there. Three
of us have had problems, and one hasn't. There seems to be little
difference between the setups. We have, however, learnt that there is
no problem with using the ram drive, but there appears to be with using
the floppy drives. On a random basis. Does anyone know different?