CP/M portable ?
Kevin Lawton
a bit more portable than an Osbourne ? My Windoze-Laptop wielding friends
keep laughing at me !
Was there, perhaps, anything a bit smaller and lighter than the Osbourne
made with a Z80 processor which might be adapted ? It is a shame The
Osbourne did not continue into the LCD-screen-and-small-disks era.
I did try getting CP/M-86 going on an old LapTop, but without any real
success as the I/O on a LapTop is all a bit weird. I was hoping that one of
the old 8-bit 'personal organiser' type of portables might have used a Z80,
but have found nothing so far. I wouldn't be adverse to doing a bit of
construction / adaptation myself.
Any ideas, anyone ?
Barry Watzman
older laptop. You can pick up an early Zenith Z181 on E-Bay for next to
nothing, that's a 640k 4.77MHz 8088 with an LCD CGA screen.
As to CP/M (8-bit), you could run an emulator on a modern laptop.
The TRS-80 Model 100 was a portable that had an 8085, but it had ROM in
low memory and I'm not sure if there was any way to get it to operate
with 64k and all-RAM. I think that it's memory map made running CP/M
impossible, and the screen/keyboard interface would be a big issue.
Kevin Lawton
reasonable' sum ?
Raj Rijhwani
ke...@btinternet.com "Kevin Lawton" wrote:
> Does anyone have any good ideas regarding getting CP/M running on something
> a bit more portable than an Osbourne ? My Windoze-Laptop wielding friends
> keep laughing at me !
There were the Husky Hunters.
--
Raj Rijhwani | This is the voice of the Mysterons...
r...@rijhwani.org | ... We know that you can hear us Earthmen
http://www.rijhwani.org/raj/ | "Lieutenant Green: Launch all Angels!"
Barry Watzman
told you that these were available on E-Bay for next to nothing:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2726764854&category=177
currently $5
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2725575430&category=4193
currently $3.50
Richard Plinston
> Does anyone have any good ideas regarding getting CP/M running on
> something
> a bit more portable than an Osbourne ?
Epson PX-8 / Geneva
Amstrad NC100 with CP/M in memory card
Jack
I have a "Bondwell 2", and I am useing it at my local Library to enter data
for my Genealogy project.
There are photos at many Computer Museums
Jack
"Richard Plinston" <rip...@Azonic.co.nz> wrote in message
news:b8ueud$rk9$1...@aklobs.kc.net.nz...
Charles Richmond
>
> Kevin Lawton wrote:
> > Has anybody got one of these which they would like to part with for a 'very
> > reasonable' sum ?
> >
> I have to really wonder about anyone who would ask this here after I
> told you that these were available on E-Bay for next to nothing:
>
> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2726764854&category=177
> currently $5
>
> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2725575430&category=4193
> currently $3.50
>
the cost of the laptop...could be anywhere from $12 to $20 just
for shipping. Of course, even if someone *gave* you a laptop,
you would still need to pay the shipping...
Go to some of your local thift (used) stores...they *might* have
something like this with *no* shipping.
--
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Charles and Francis Richmond richmond at plano dot net |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
Charles Richmond
>
> On Friday, in article <b8tsda$6h4$4...@sparta.btinternet.com>
> ke...@btinternet.com "Kevin Lawton" wrote:
>
> > Does anyone have any good ideas regarding getting CP/M running on something
> > a bit more portable than an Osbourne ? My Windoze-Laptop wielding friends
> > keep laughing at me !
>
> There were the Husky Hunters.
>
seen pictures and would *like* to have one...but I do *not*
think that they can live outside of Britain... ;-)
Howard
The easiest thing to do would be to run an emulator. There are
several good emulators for the Tandy TRS-80 Model I/III/IV line of
computers, which could run CP/M. A couple of quick suggestions would
be:
Under MS-DOS/Windows ( < NT ):
David Keil's excellent TRS-80 Emulator :
http://discover-net.net/~dmkeil/
Matthew Reeds TRS-80 Emulator : http://www.arrowweb.com/mkr/
Including NT (and possibly Win2K/XP, I haven't tried them)
WinTRS-80 : http://asub.arknet.edu/wade/wintrs80.htm
Under Unix/Linux/Mac OS X:
Timm Mann's XTRS : http://www.tim-mann.org/xtrs.html
I am personally running XTRS on Mac OS X, FreeBSD and Debian Linux.
It takes a bit more work to get running, but the satisfaction is much
greater ;-)
If you go the TRS-80 Emulator route, you can find disk images for
Montezuma Micro CP/M on Ira Goldklang's website :
http://www.trs-80.com/
I prefer the emulator route, because under Windows, Unix and OS X, you
can have multiple windows running at the same time.
Regards,
Howard Pepper
Kevin Lawton
>> Barry Watzman wrote:
>>>
>>> Kevin Lawton wrote:
>>>> Has anybody got one of these which they would like to part with
>>>> for a 'very reasonable' sum ?
>>>>
>>> I have to really wonder about anyone who would ask this here after I
>>> told you that these were available on E-Bay for next to nothing:
>>>
>>>
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2726764854&category=177
>>> currently $5
>>>
>>>
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2725575430&category=4193
>>> currently $3.50
>>>
>> The real problem is the shipping...it's going to be *more* than
>> the cost of the laptop...could be anywhere from $12 to $20 just
>> for shipping. Of course, even if someone *gave* you a laptop,
>> you would still need to pay the shipping...
Yes, I agree, the Zenith Z181 does sound like 'just the thing' for me.
Problem is, finding one at low cost in England. It seems that they were
popular stateside, but I've never seen one over here. I think shipping from
US to UK would be about $40 to $50.
Kevin Lawton
>> Raj Rijhwani wrote:
>>>
>>> On Friday, in article <b8tsda$6h4$4...@sparta.btinternet.com>
>>> ke...@btinternet.com "Kevin Lawton" wrote:
>>>
>>>> Does anyone have any good ideas regarding getting CP/M running on
>>>> something a bit more portable than an Osbourne ? My
>>>> Windoze-Laptop wielding friends keep laughing at me !
>>>
>>> There were the Husky Hunters.
>>>
>> Can someone get a Husky Hunter outside of Britain??? I have
>> seen pictures and would *like* to have one...but I do *not*
>> think that they can live outside of Britain... ;-)
Can someone find me one INSIDE Britain at the 'right price' - and I'll
collect it ! :-)
Kevin Lawton
Interesting info - thanks. I did work with Tandy TRS-80 machines some time
ago, but never considered them to be portables !
I was wondering if anyone knew of any single-board machine, which I could
then bung in a briefcase with a disk drive and small LCD screen ?
All of the old 8-bit single-board home computers I can think of used either
the 6502 processor (Acorn Electron, BBC 'B', Commodore 64) or 6809 (Dragon,
TRS-80 Co-Co). There was one called the 'Lynx', but I've not seen or heard
of one for twenty years !
Curtis McCain
If you ever want to retire that Bondwell, drop me a line. I promise to
give it a good home.
Curtis
Frankie Zsitvay
Kevin Lawton wrote:
>
> Howard wrote:
> >> The easiest thing to do would be to run an emulator. There are
> >> several good emulators for the Tandy TRS-80 Model I/III/IV line of
> >> computers, which could run CP/M. A couple of quick suggestions would
> >> be:
> >>
> >> Under MS-DOS/Windows ( < NT ):
> >> David Keil's excellent TRS-80 Emulator :
> >> http://discover-net.net/~dmkeil/
> >> Matthew Reeds TRS-80 Emulator : http://www.arrowweb.com/mkr/
> >>
> >> Including NT (and possibly Win2K/XP, I haven't tried them)
> >> WinTRS-80 : http://asub.arknet.edu/wade/wintrs80.htm
> >>
> >> Under Unix/Linux/Mac OS X:
> >> Timm Mann's XTRS : http://www.tim-mann.org/xtrs.html
> >>
> Interesting info - thanks. I did work with Tandy TRS-80 machines some time
> ago, but never considered them to be portables !
> I was wondering if anyone knew of any single-board machine, which I could
> then bung in a briefcase with a disk drive and small LCD screen ?
> All of the old 8-bit single-board home computers I can think of used either
> the 6502 processor (Acorn Electron, BBC 'B', Commodore 64) or 6809 (Dragon,
> TRS-80 Co-Co). There was one called the 'Lynx', but I've not seen or heard
> of one for twenty years !
An emulator running on a laptop is going to have so many
advantages over running an older portable machine. For one
thing, the emulator is going to be many times faster than the
old hardware was.
You can also run many different emulators. One laptop machine
could be a CP/M machine, a TRS-80 Model 1, a TRS-80 Color
Computer, an Atari 800, a Commodore 64, and even a virtual clone
of just about every arcade video game ever made.
Only twiddle with the old hardware if you like twiddling with
hardware. There is a certain thrill to bringing up a computer
you assembled from chips and wrote the BIOS for, but if you're
not into that, but would rather play around with only the
programming aspects of the old machine, the emulator is the way
to go.
-Frank
Roger Ivie
>
> Can someone get a Husky Hunter outside of Britain??? I have
> seen pictures and would *like* to have one...but I do *not*
> think that they can live outside of Britain... ;-)
We had one for a while at a previous place of employment in Utah.
I don't recall precisely how we acquired it; it may have been
customer-furnished equipment for a project.
--
Roger Ivie
ri...@ridgenet.net
Raj Rijhwani
ke...@btinternet.com "Kevin Lawton" wrote:
> Can someone find me one INSIDE Britain at the 'right price' - and I'll
> collect it ! :-)
No chance! If I find one at the right price, it's joining *my*
menagerie!
Russell Marks
To get an idea of what the "CP/M" is like, see
http://www.ibiblio.org/zcn/ . NC100s shouldn't be too hard to come by
in the UK - the tricky bit is the memory card, but the FAQ for
comp.sys.amstrad.8bit had some pointers to companies you could order
them from last time I checked.
ZCN also works on the NC200 if you'd rather try one of those, but
they're a bit bulkier (while NC100s are A4 and about an inch thick)
and you'd still need a memory card to run ZCN on it.
OTOH, I'd recommend the emulator route that's already been mentioned.
The main advantage of the NC100 over PC laptops is battery life (even
with mediocre ni-cads you can expect 8 hours from an NC100), but if
you're not worried about that a PC would give you more flexibility.
-Rus.
Kevin Lawton
As you might have guessed, I don't want to go down emulator lane.
I had never heard of the Amstrad NC100 before now, but it sounds ideal for
my purposes. I haven't a clue about the NC200 - what was that, something
similar ?
Okay, so I had a look at the ZCN site and also the NC Users' site and
realise that an NC200 would be even better for my purposes. I guess an NC150
might be usefull too. From what I can see, the difference between these
models is the screen size, so the NC200 would be best.
Okay then, anybody know where I might get an NC200 ? ? ?
|
| -Rus.
Wesley Parish
I've used the DEC Rainbow CP/M 86, but only on the Rainbow, which I gave to
a group trying to rescue odds and sods of computer history.
For what it's worth ...
Wesley Parish
Freek Heite
>> Has anyone had any luck in getting CP/M 86 running on a 8086/88 Portable?
Sure, "CP/M-86 version 1.1 for the IBM PC" runs just fine on my Toshiba
Pentium-133 notebook - and probably will do so on any "IBM-compatible" machine.
Or did I miss something?
Freek.
email: f.heite at hccnet.nl
Ross Simpson
> Does anyone have any good ideas regarding getting CP/M running on
something
> a bit more portable than an Osbourne ? My Windoze-Laptop wielding
friends
> keep laughing at me !
They don't sound like very good friends if they keep laughing at you! :-(
> Was there, perhaps, anything a bit smaller and lighter than the Osbourne
> made with a Z80 processor which might be adapted ? It is a shame The
> Osbourne did not continue into the LCD-screen-and-small-disks era.
> I did try getting CP/M-86 going on an old LapTop, but without any real
> success as the I/O on a LapTop is all a bit weird. I was hoping that one
of
> the old 8-bit 'personal organiser' type of portables might have used a
Z80,
> but have found nothing so far. I wouldn't be adverse to doing a bit of
> construction / adaptation myself.
> Any ideas, anyone ?
Get one of your Windoze wielding friends laptops, delete Windoze & install
CP/M-86 v1.1 for the IBM. But before you delete Windoze, you could go here
to download CP/M-86: http://www.cpm.z80.de/download/144cpm86.zip at least
you'd have the last laught there! :-)
Well it's just an idea. I've got CP/M-86 v1.1 for the IBM working on my
386 Laptop which is pretty slim! :-)
Regards,
Ross.
Ross Simpson
> >> Has anyone had any luck in getting CP/M 86 running on a 8086/88
Portable?
> Sure, "CP/M-86 version 1.1 for the IBM PC" runs just fine on my Toshiba
> Pentium-133 notebook - and probably will do so on any "IBM-compatible"
machine.
> Or did I miss something?
No, I think you got it in one Freek! :-)
Is that one of those 'Satelite Pro' Toshibas? (I came so close getting one
of
those, but I didn't have the money! :-( ).
Regards,
Ross.
Kevin Lawton
Thanks to all for the idea of running CP/M on an IBM PC-compatible laptop.
Unfortunately, all the early laptops I've seen have two big problems:
1) They are bulky, heavy, and have poor battery life - so I might as well
use a 'luggable' like I currently do for minix.
2) They are relatively expensive to buy. The 286, 386 & 486 laptops that
I've seen for sale are priced at about the same as a new low-cost desktop
PC - rediculous !
The conclusion that I've come to is that I either get something together
myself - involving an old Sinclair Spectrum and some DIY - or I get one of
the Amstrad NC-200 laptops which, I understand, can run CP/M with a little
hacking. Light weight, low cost and small price !
Anybody got an Amstrad NC-200 they would part with ?
Ross Simpson
<sniped!>
> 2) They are relatively expensive to buy. The 286, 386 & 486 laptops that
> I've seen for sale are priced at about the same as a new low-cost desktop
> PC - rediculous !
WHAT?! I was lucky enough to get my 386 for nothing! Another person I know
got there XT laptop for nothing as well, but that was a year or two before
I got mine. But if you want to go into the issues of expanding one of those
early IBM compatable laptops with memory, then that's expensive. It's
better to get a one with some memory in.
> The conclusion that I've come to is that I either get something together
> myself - involving an old Sinclair Spectrum and some DIY - or I get one of
> the Amstrad NC-200 laptops which, I understand, can run CP/M with a little
> hacking. Light weight, low cost and small price !
> Anybody got an Amstrad NC-200 they would part with ?
But maybe an IBM compatable isn't what you want. CP/M-86 isn't compatable
with good ol' CP/M-80. The problem with that, being that you'd need a decent
laptop to emulate CP/M-80. A 386 should do the job, even if you just have
DOS with a CP/M emulator which is booted up when you turn on the computer!
If you start having emulated machines (on your laptop) which run CP/M then
perhaps you'd be looking into a reasonibly fast 486 (33Mhz perhaps?). A few
years ago I saw 486 laptops sold for under 500 Aussie Dollars. So perhaps
300 is the going rate now.
Regards,
Ross.
Kevin Lawton
I think the point is that the market in Britain is very different from
either America or Australia. Over here, most old machines just get thrown on
the council tip - people have this stupid wastefull attitude that it is
better to spend a fortune they can't afford on something new than hang on to
both their money and something which still works fine. Unfortunately, due to
very silly EEC regulations (which unlike the French and Germans, we are
actually forced to follow) it is actually ILLEGAL to scavenge itmes which
have been discarded at an authorised waste disposal facility. Some people
will quite merrily throw away the perfectly working PC or games console they
bought their kids a year or two before, just to make room for a newer one.
This happens with everything: computers, cars, furniture, anything ! The
only thing wrong with most stuff thrown away is that it is not new.
As a result, those machines which do actually survive are in the hands of
'specialist' dealers who 'service' them (wipe them over with a cloth) and
then sell them on for a relatively high price.You will probably notice that
anything on E-bay priced in pounds sterling is also priced far higher than
it 'should' be.
Regarding machine spec: I would expect that a 4.77 MHz 16-bit 8086
processor should have no problem emulating a 1 MHz 8-bit Z80 at around the
same speed as the original ran. Okay some old CP/M machines had the 2 MHz
Z80A or 4 MHz Z80B processor, but likewise some ran a sub-MHz 8080. A 12 MHz
80286 machine should have absolutely no problem emulating a Z80 and thus run
CP/M at a realistic speed. I am interesting in running 'real' CP/M (now
known as CP/M-80), preferably on a Z80 platform. I have no need to emulate
CP/M-86 as I have both ACT Sirius-1 and ACT Apricot PC machines, which run
CP/M-86 natively.
Wouldn't mind a Tatung Einstein or a Britsh Micro Mimi (both are Z80 - CP/M)
either !
CBFalconer
>
... snip ...
>
> Regarding machine spec: I would expect that a 4.77 MHz 16-bit
> 8086 processor should have no problem emulating a 1 MHz 8-bit
> Z80 at around the same speed as the original ran. Okay some old
> CP/M machines had the 2 MHz Z80A or 4 MHz Z80B processor, but
> likewise some ran a sub-MHz 8080. A 12 MHz 80286 machine should
> have absolutely no problem emulating a Z80 and thus run CP/M at
> a realistic speed. I am interesting in running 'real' CP/M (now
> known as CP/M-80), preferably on a Z80 platform. I have no need
> to emulate CP/M-86 as I have both ACT Sirius-1 and ACT Apricot
> PC machines, which run CP/M-86 natively.
No non-crippled CP/M machine ran at under 2 Mhz. The earliest
8080 chips executed at that speed. Matching them on an emulator
takes at least a 16 Mhz x86 machine, depending on the efficiency
of the emulator. Emulators written in higher level languages tend
to slow down by a factor of 25 or so, in taut assembly only 5 to
10. So expect to need a 486/100 to simulate a 4 Mhz Z80s
performance.
--
Chuck F (cbfal...@yahoo.com) (cbfal...@worldnet.att.net)
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
<http://cbfalconer.home.att.net> USE worldnet address!
Ross Simpson
<sniped!>
> I think the point is that the market in Britain is very different from
> either America or Australia. Over here, most old machines just get thrown
on
> the council tip - people have this stupid wastefull attitude that it is
> better to spend a fortune they can't afford on something new than hang on
to
> both their money and something which still works fine. Unfortunately, due
to
> very silly EEC regulations (which unlike the French and Germans, we are
> actually forced to follow) it is actually ILLEGAL to scavenge itmes which
> have been discarded at an authorised waste disposal facility. Some people
> will quite merrily throw away the perfectly working PC or games console
they
> bought their kids a year or two before, just to make room for a newer one.
> This happens with everything: computers, cars, furniture, anything ! The
> only thing wrong with most stuff thrown away is that it is not new.
> As a result, those machines which do actually survive are in the hands of
> 'specialist' dealers who 'service' them (wipe them over with a cloth) and
> then sell them on for a relatively high price.You will probably notice
that
> anything on E-bay priced in pounds sterling is also priced far higher than
> it 'should' be.
Being an ol' Amstrad user from way back, I used to hear stories about
people simply recieving an Amstrad CPC computer. I suppose it was to
save them from the dump, but I suppose someone thought of it being
too good for the dump, unlike the modern day PC, which is ranted on
as a tool, rather than a little beauty. I guess it's legal to just
recieve a computer (wouldn't it?) from someone. So it's a question of
who you know?
A little time ago, there was a simular scandal where this guy would
flog you a computer for cheap. One was found of frad when it was
discovered he had no computers, people would flash out their credit
cards before getting the product. Time would pass? Where's our
computer? Another bloke who had a simular deal going, sent you a
computer, but it didn't work. This bloke was caught selling pieces
from a computer which came from a dump! He claimed they were
reconditioned! Unfortunately, there are just some people out there
who think they are getting a good deal from a cheap computer, but
whenever they show those advertisements you know that they are just
out to con someone!
> Regarding machine spec: I would expect that a 4.77 MHz 16-bit 8086
> processor should have no problem emulating a 1 MHz 8-bit Z80 at around the
> same speed as the original ran. Okay some old CP/M machines had the 2 MHz
> Z80A or 4 MHz Z80B processor, but likewise some ran a sub-MHz 8080. A 12
MHz
> 80286 machine should have absolutely no problem emulating a Z80 and thus
run
> CP/M at a realistic speed. I am interesting in running 'real' CP/M (now
> known as CP/M-80), preferably on a Z80 platform. I have no need to emulate
> CP/M-86 as I have both ACT Sirius-1 and ACT Apricot PC machines, which run
> CP/M-86 natively.
No, I wasn't referning to emulating CP/M-86 on a 16Bit, I was merely
referning
to emulating a DOS based CP/M-80 based machine on a laptop! :-) The Amstrad
NC200 maybe the way to go in terms of getting CP/M on it. I've only seen the
NC100, but I suppose the NC200 is even better looking! :-)
> Wouldn't mind a Tatung Einstein or a Britsh Micro Mimi (both are Z80 -
CP/M)
> either !
Fingers Crossed for you! :-)
Regards,
Ross.
Kevin Lawton
| Kevin Lawton wrote:
||
| ... snip ...
||
|| Regarding machine spec: I would expect that a 4.77 MHz 16-bit
|| 8086 processor should have no problem emulating a 1 MHz 8-bit
|| Z80 at around the same speed as the original ran. Okay some old
|| CP/M machines had the 2 MHz Z80A or 4 MHz Z80B processor, but
|| likewise some ran a sub-MHz 8080. A 12 MHz 80286 machine should
|| have absolutely no problem emulating a Z80 and thus run CP/M at
|| a realistic speed. I am interesting in running 'real' CP/M (now
|| known as CP/M-80), preferably on a Z80 platform. I have no need
|| to emulate CP/M-86 as I have both ACT Sirius-1 and ACT Apricot
|| PC machines, which run CP/M-86 natively.
|
| No non-crippled CP/M machine ran at under 2 Mhz. The earliest
| 8080 chips executed at that speed. Matching them on an emulator
| takes at least a 16 Mhz x86 machine, depending on the efficiency
| of the emulator. Emulators written in higher level languages tend
| to slow down by a factor of 25 or so, in taut assembly only 5 to
| 10. So expect to need a 486/100 to simulate a 4 Mhz Z80s
| performance.
To be honest, I thought the slowest clocked 8080s were around 500 KHz and
only the fastest ones ran at about 2 MHz. Then again, my memory might be
slightly inaccurate or I might be thinking of the 8085.
I worked on a number of CP/M machines in the early 1980's and most did, I'd
agree, run a Z80A at 2 or 4 MHz. That, I found, gave very acceptable
performance for 'professional' applications. I have seen CP/M running on a 1
MHz Z80 before, I think it was a Nascom, and it wasn't too bad. Given that
half the time the machine is either getting keyboard input or accessing the
disk drives - partiularly when word processing - I don't think it makes as
much difference as figures might suggest.
Writing a Z80 (or 8080) emulator in assembler, I would expect to manage most
emulated instructions in either 6 or 8 real instructions (okay, there would
be a few exceptions). I'd therefore excpect a 12 MHz 80286 to be able to run
CP/M as an emulated 8080 or Z80 at around 1 to 2 MHz, though a 16 MHz 80386
should manage even better. I wouldn't expect anybody to want to try writing
an emulator in a high-level language unless they just wanted to perform some
practical evaluation of 8-bit architecture. I imagine that a Z80 emulator
written in Java or Basic would take a modern Pentium or Athlon machine to
acheive representative performance.
Anyway. like I said, I don't want to use emulation. I have a couple of real
8086 machines running CP/M-86 and now I'm looking for a Z80 machine to run
CP/M 2.2 or even CP/M-plus. Portable if possible.
Kevin Lawton
| Being an ol' Amstrad user from way back, I used to hear stories about
| people simply recieving an Amstrad CPC computer. I suppose it was to
| save them from the dump, but I suppose someone thought of it being
| too good for the dump, unlike the modern day PC, which is ranted on
| as a tool, rather than a little beauty. I guess it's legal to just
| recieve a computer (wouldn't it?) from someone. So it's a question of
| who you know?
I would always be happy to 'receive' old computer equipment from anyone who
wishes to part with it. The problem is, people's attitude is so weird ! The
number of people I've heard say 'we didn't think you'd want it as it had got
a little dirty' or even 'the <@@@> was broke and we were told it would cost
a fortune to fix'. Everyone I know knows very well that I collect and repair
old computers, but they still just throw stuff away !
The other side of it is when somebody is about to throw something away and
so you ask if you can have it for your collection. Suddenly, the 'rubbish'
item acquires a high price. I am not rich and rely on being able to make
goodwill jestures rather than pay people for their 'junk'. These people will
actually insist on throwing something away if you won't pay their high price
! It sounds really stupid, but it happens. Not too long ago I was dumping
some real rubbish - garden waste - and asked somebody if they would give me
a computer which they were just about to throw into a skip. Instantly, they
said 'twenty pounds'. I only had ten pounds on me and offered them that.
They actually refused the ten pounds, because I didn't have twenty, and
threw into the skip a machine which had cost them many hundreds a couple of
years earlier.
| A little time ago, there was a simular scandal where this guy would
| flog you a computer for cheap. One was found of frad when it was
| discovered he had no computers, people would flash out their credit
| cards before getting the product. Time would pass? Where's our
| computer? Another bloke who had a simular deal going, sent you a
| computer, but it didn't work. This bloke was caught selling pieces
| from a computer which came from a dump! He claimed they were
| reconditioned! Unfortunately, there are just some people out there
| who think they are getting a good deal from a cheap computer, but
| whenever they show those advertisements you know that they are just
| out to con someone!
Well, I don't know if that is what people think I am going to do with their
old-throw-away machines. I'm not too sure how I can convince them that I am
genuine. I have been collecting old machines for about twenty years, and
would be happy to let someone who might make a donation view my collection.
I know there are plenty of 'fly boys' in most walks of life - if they think
they can make money out of people then they'll try it. I'm just not like
that. I'm trying to save a few examples of each home and desktop computer
because I am interested in them. That's all.
<snip>
| No, I wasn't referning to emulating CP/M-86 on a 16Bit, I was merely
| referning
| to emulating a DOS based CP/M-80 based machine on a laptop! :-) The
| Amstrad NC200 maybe the way to go in terms of getting CP/M on it.
| I've only seen the NC100, but I suppose the NC200 is even better
| looking! :-)
The NC-200 is just like the NC-100 but with a bigger screen, more memory and
a disk drive. Ideal for portable CP/M.
|
|| Wouldn't mind a Tatung Einstein or a Britsh Micro Mimi (both are Z80 -
CP/M) either !
|
| Fingers Crossed for you! :-)
Thanks. Please, everybody, let me know if you come across anything like
these machines within the UK. Thanks.
CBFalconer
>
> <super-snip>
>
> ! It sounds really stupid, but it happens. Not too long ago I
> was dumping some real rubbish - garden waste - and asked somebody
> if they would give me a computer which they were just about to
> throw into a skip. Instantly, they said 'twenty pounds'. I only
> had ten pounds on me and offered them that. They actually refused
> the ten pounds, because I didn't have twenty, and threw into the
> skip a machine which had cost them many hundreds a couple of
> years earlier.
They probably thought you were somewhat touched in the head, and
wanted nothing to do with you. When you offered them ten that
confirmed their view.
CBFalconer
>
> | ... snip ...
> ||
> manage most emulated instructions in either 6 or 8 real instructions
You can map most 8080 registers into x86 registers, but the z80
registers will need memory storage. You can't map the PC into pc,
and probably don't want to map the SP into sp. That means a
minimum instruction loop looks something like:
fetch: mov somewhere, [simulated pc]
inc simulated pc
add somewhere, table base
jmp [somewhere]; or call
somewhereelse:
mov bh, bl; simulating mov h,l
jmp fetch
and you haven't even begun to worry about proper flag control.
You are replacing short instructions (mov h,l executes in 3 or 4
clocks) with over 6 much slower instructions. A good comparison
is to count memory accesses, including op codes, in a byte
addressing machine such as the 8088.
"mov h,l" has one. The simulator/interpreter has about 16.
Kevin Lawton
| Kevin Lawton wrote:
||
||| ... snip ...
||||
|| Writing a Z80 (or 8080) emulator in assembler, I would expect to
|| manage most emulated instructions in either 6 or 8 real instructions
|
| You can map most 8080 registers into x86 registers, but the z80
| registers will need memory storage. You can't map the PC into pc,
| and probably don't want to map the SP into sp. That means a
| minimum instruction loop looks something like:
|
| fetch: mov somewhere, [simulated pc]
| inc simulated pc
| add somewhere, table base
| jmp [somewhere]; or call
|
| somewhereelse:
| mov bh, bl; simulating mov h,l
| jmp fetch
|
| and you haven't even begun to worry about proper flag control.
| You are replacing short instructions (mov h,l executes in 3 or 4
| clocks) with over 6 much slower instructions. A good comparison
| is to count memory accesses, including op codes, in a byte
| addressing machine such as the 8088.
|
| "mov h,l" has one. The simulator/interpreter has about 16.
Okay, okay, I might not know you but it looks to me as if you have some
experience of writing an emulator. Fair enough, I am not arguing with you.
My original point was that even a laptop which, by PC standards, is 'very
old' - like, say, a 80386 laptop - will still make quite a reasonable job of
running CP/M via a Z80 or 8080 emulator (properly written in assembler, of
course). As far as I remember CP/M was designed to run on an 8080, so the
added complexity of a Z80 emulator should not be required.
Kevin Lawton
| Kevin Lawton wrote:
||
|| <super-snip>
||
|| ! It sounds really stupid, but it happens. Not too long ago I
|| was dumping some real rubbish - garden waste - and asked somebody
|| if they would give me a computer which they were just about to
|| throw into a skip. Instantly, they said 'twenty pounds'. I only
|| had ten pounds on me and offered them that. They actually refused
|| the ten pounds, because I didn't have twenty, and threw into the
|| skip a machine which had cost them many hundreds a couple of
|| years earlier.
|
| They probably thought you were somewhat touched in the head, and
| wanted nothing to do with you. When you offered them ten that
| confirmed their view.
Okay, maybe it might seem a little insane to offer somebody a tenner for
something they paid a few hundreed for a couple of years ago, but if they
are about to throw it away anyway why not ? At least they get the price of
a few drinks out of it, know it is going to a good home, and get to make
somebody else happy (me).
It seems just the same with older cars. At around 12 to 15 years old most
cars seem to reach their 'rock-bottom' value. People will just go and smash
them up instead of let at least a few be kept. 10 years later they are as
rare as hens' teeth and worth a fortune. There is plenty of folks around
who'd be happy with a 15 year old car so long as it works reasonably well.
But, no, they have to be wrecked for fun instead !
And your reply started by saying people might think I was touched in the
head ? ? ?
Lee Hart
> You should have been able to get CP/M-86 to run on a laptop, at
> least an older laptop.
Yes; this should be easy.
> You can pick up an early Zenith Z181 on E-Bay for next to
> nothing, that's a 640k 4.77MHz 8088 with an LCD CGA screen.
Also a good option for a portable. The Z181 is a little big for a
laptop, though.
> The TRS-80 Model 100 was a portable that had an 8085, but it had ROM in
> low memory and I'm not sure if there was any way to get it to operate
> with 64k and all-RAM.
I still have a couple TRS-80 model 100's, along with the service manual.
They are very nice machines!
In stock form, it has 32k of ROM from 0-7FFF hex, and up to 32k of RAM
from 8000-FFFF hex (four sockets for 8k RAMs). There is also an "option
ROM" socket for a second 32k ROM, which gets bank-switched in place of
the main ROM.
One of the common accessories was a 32K or larger RAM that plugs into
the option ROM socket. My model 100 has a 128k RAM in the option ROM
socket, providing four 32k banks. One bank has a word processor and
spreadsheet program in it, and the other 3 banks are RAM to extend file
space (like a 96k disk drive).
For years, I've toyed with bringing up CP/M on the model 100. With a RAM
in the option ROM socket, you can have the all-RAM memory map, and the
screen, keyboard, serial, and parallel ports are all quite usable for
CP/M. The main drawback is that the LCD display is only 8 lines of 40
characters; there's not much CP/M software that can work with that!
To make it practical, what's really needed is a "normal" 80x24 LCD
screen. But it would be quite a job to find one small enough to fit in
place of the one on the model 100.
To me, the appeal of a CP/M portable is that CP/M requires so little CPU
speed and memory that battery life can be orders of magnitude longer
than any modern laptop. My model 100's battery life is measured in DAYS,
not hours.
--
Lee A. Hart Ring the bells that still can ring
814 8th Ave. N. Forget your perfect offering
Sartell, MN 56377 USA There is a crack in everything
leeahart_at_earthlink.net That's how the light gets in - Leonard Cohen
Kevin Lawton
| Barry Watzman wrote:
|| You should have been able to get CP/M-86 to run on a laptop, at
|| least an older laptop.
|
| Yes; this should be easy.
|
|| You can pick up an early Zenith Z181 on E-Bay for next to
|| nothing, that's a 640k 4.77MHz 8088 with an LCD CGA screen.
|
| Also a good option for a portable. The Z181 is a little big for a
| laptop, though.
|| The TRS-80 Model 100 was a portable that had an 8085, but it had ROM
|| in low memory and I'm not sure if there was any way to get it to
|| operate with 64k and all-RAM.
|
| I still have a couple TRS-80 model 100's, along with the service
| manual. They are very nice machines!
These are not, by any chance, somewhat similar to the Amstrad CN-100 ?
Tandy did have a habit of selling re-badged products. For example, the
TRS-80 Colour Computer was really a Dragon in disguise ! I'm not saying
that this is a bad practise, as I quite fancy getting a CN-100, so a TRS-80
Model 100 would be a suitable option.
| To me, the appeal of a CP/M portable is that CP/M requires so little
| CPU speed and memory that battery life can be orders of magnitude
| longer than any modern laptop. My model 100's battery life is
| measured in DAYS, not hours.
Ah ! So, somebody has worked out why I want to do this, have they ?
CBFalconer
> ||
> ||| ... snip ...
> ||||
> is 'very old' - like, say, a 80386 laptop - will still make quite
> a reasonable job of running CP/M via a Z80 or 8080 emulator
> (properly written in assembler, of course). As far as I remember
> CP/M was designed to run on an 8080, so the added complexity of a
> Z80 emulator should not be required.
The original DR CP/M, yes. Bioses often have Z80 code, and
applications even more so. In fact there are very few applications
out there without any Z80 code in them. If you advance to other
enhancements, such as my DOSPLUS/CCPLUS, or Zsystems CCP
replacements, you also need Z80 operation. One of the few major
systems that will run on 8080s is my PascalP system.
Dosius
<snip>
> But maybe an IBM compatable isn't what you want. CP/M-86 isn't compatable
> with good ol' CP/M-80. The problem with that, being that you'd need a decent
> laptop to emulate CP/M-80. A 386 should do the job, even if you just have
> DOS with a CP/M emulator which is booted up when you turn on the computer!
>
> If you start having emulated machines (on your laptop) which run CP/M then
> perhaps you'd be looking into a reasonibly fast 486 (33Mhz perhaps?). A few
> years ago I saw 486 laptops sold for under 500 Aussie Dollars. So perhaps
> 300 is the going rate now.
>
> Regards,
> Ross.
A machine with the ability to read 720K disks could run Personal CP/M
2.0x which supports Jim Lopushinsky's Z80 emulator. There you go! *g*
-uso.
Kevin Lawton
| Kevin Lawton wrote:
||||
||||| ... snip ...
||||||
|| My original point was that even a laptop which, by PC standards,
|| is 'very old' - like, say, a 80386 laptop - will still make quite
|| a reasonable job of running CP/M via a Z80 or 8080 emulator
|| (properly written in assembler, of course). As far as I remember
|| CP/M was designed to run on an 8080, so the added complexity of a
|| Z80 emulator should not be required.
|
| The original DR CP/M, yes. Bioses often have Z80 code, and
| applications even more so. In fact there are very few applications
| out there without any Z80 code in them. If you advance to other
| enhancements, such as my DOSPLUS/CCPLUS, or Zsystems CCP
| replacements, you also need Z80 operation. One of the few major
| systems that will run on 8080s is my PascalP system.
Okay - that's fair enough, then. I am looking for a small Z80 based portable
to run CP/M and still reckon that is the better decision. Something like a
TRS-80 model 100 or Amstrad CN-200 is emerging as the ideal solution.
BTW: I have only just realised exactly who you are. Respect, mate, you
helped get us to where we are today !
I was wondering, do you know what activity there has been in getting a good
mail / news client on CP/M in recent years ? When I last worked with CP/M,
there was only glimpses of what the internet was to become with a few
bulletin boards and file archives.
Freek Heite
>>>> Pentium-133 notebook - and probably will do so on any "IBM-compatible" machine.
>> those, but I didn't have the money! :-( ).
machine locks up after pressing control-break; Stephen Hunt had the same problem
on a similar Toshiba notebook/laptop.
What is so "special" with a Satelite Pro that you _had_ to have one - apart from
the price?
Regards,
Michael J. Mahon
<snip>
>Not too long ago I...asked somebody if they would give me
>a computer which they were just about to throw into a skip. Instantly, they
>said 'twenty pounds'. I only had ten pounds on me and offered them that.
>They actually refused the ten pounds, because I didn't have twenty, and
>threw into the skip [the] machine...
There must be a special place in hell for prople whose mind works
like this. This behavior is simply evil--"Since you seem to value it,
I will destroy it rather than let you have it."
-michael
Check out amazing quality 8-bit Apple sound on my
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
Ross Simpson
> >> Is that one of those 'Satelite Pro' Toshibas? (I came so close getting
one of
> >> those, but I didn't have the money! :-( ).
> Ross, I have a Toshiba Satelite 230 CX. Only problem with CP/M-86 is that
the
> machine locks up after pressing control-break; Stephen Hunt had the same
problem
> on a similar Toshiba notebook/laptop.
I haven't had any worries with Control Break on my 386. But if I do a Ctrl
Insert
on my machine (which is used to bring up the BIOS setup program), that can
cause
some problems with CP/M-86. I'm only guessing that there might be a conflict
with
that keypress which the Toshiba machines might use & CP/M-86 which uses it
as a
way of exiting back to the command line.
> What is so "special" with a Satelite Pro that you _had_ to have one -
apart from
> the price?
Actually, the Toshiba machines I was looking at was running at 120Mhz!
Basically at
the time I was looking around buying a laptop (I was studying a computer
course &
all I had to my name was an Amstrad CPC computer & IBM XT!). This would have
been
going back to 1997 when those machines were new & I was just after something
nice
& compact (which I might of taken to my course). When I checked out the
Toshiba
laptops I thought they were quite nice, but at 3,000 aussie dollars I just
couldn't
afford it on my budget (which was a couple of 100 every fortnight!). I just
ended
up getting an ordinary desktop computer & paying it back. But specifically,
I wanted something with a CD-ROM & Floppy disk at the time in the Laptop,
but it was
just too much
But when I was lucky to obtain a 386 laptop (for nothing), I was very happy
to
just have something running DOS at first, but at first I was a little
conserned
about getting the Internet onto it because it only had 1 Mb. I was able
to get the internet on it with that memory, but it seemed sluggish, so
was reasonibly happy when I paid a fortune to get 4Mb into it. But I
certainally
wasn't in the mood to just get another Laptop with more memory for less,
since
I already had a pretty good one with a lot of stuff like DOS & CP/M-86
already
running on it. But, It certainally improved the running of Internet on it!
:-)
Some kinda soul also wrote this nice Ramdrive FIDD which used the Extended
memory
in CP/M-86! ;-)
Regards,
Ross.
Marada C. Shradrakaii
>I've seen for sale are priced at about the same as a new low-cost desktop
>PC - rediculous !
Have you checked some of the computer-oriented swap meets? If you're willing
to track down parts and do work, you can get some remarkable buys.
I bought a 486/40 laptop with a very nice colour screen for $5 at such a swap
meet. You just needed to add an appropriate power supply and battery. I had
these left over from another of the same series of models (Toshiba T19xx) and
used those.
--
Marada Coeurfuege Shra'drakaii
On the Internet, all roads lead to either pornography or a GNU/Linux HOWTO.
Which way are you going?
Mail hint: Not in Russia
Bill Marcum
<ke...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> These are not, by any chance, somewhat similar to the Amstrad CN-100 ?
> Tandy did have a habit of selling re-badged products. For example, the
> TRS-80 Colour Computer was really a Dragon in disguise ! I'm not saying
> that this is a bad practise, as I quite fancy getting a CN-100, so a TRS-80
> Model 100 would be a suitable option.
>
I haven't heard of that Amstrad model, but almost identical
machines were sold under the brand names NEC, Kyocera and Olivetti.
As I understand it, they were all made by Kyocera.
If the CN-100 was the same type of machine, it would probably be
mentioned on the club100.org web site.
Tandy also had pocket computers that were made by Sharp or Casio.
--
bill marcum the mushroom-eating laboratory monkey
What kind of monkey are you? http://thesurrealist.co.uk/monkey.cgi
Ross Simpson
<super-snip>
> | Being an ol' Amstrad user from way back, I used to hear stories about
> | people simply recieving an Amstrad CPC computer. I suppose it was to
> | save them from the dump, but I suppose someone thought of it being
> | too good for the dump, unlike the modern day PC, which is ranted on
> | as a tool, rather than a little beauty. I guess it's legal to just
> | recieve a computer (wouldn't it?) from someone. So it's a question of
> | who you know?
> I would always be happy to 'receive' old computer equipment from anyone
who
> wishes to part with it. The problem is, people's attitude is so weird !
The
> number of people I've heard say 'we didn't think you'd want it as it had
got
> a little dirty' or even 'the <@@@> was broke and we were told it would
cost
> a fortune to fix'. Everyone I know knows very well that I collect and
repair
> old computers, but they still just throw stuff away !
Most people don't understand that there's us, who is interested in any
ol' computer hardware. Most people just use computers & chuck the whole
thing
out when they think they are broke. But most of the time it's not the whole
thing which is broke & fixing the problem maybe to just get a new Hard Disk!
> The other side of it is when somebody is about to throw something away and
> so you ask if you can have it for your collection. Suddenly, the 'rubbish'
> item acquires a high price. I am not rich and rely on being able to make
> goodwill jestures rather than pay people for their 'junk'. These people
will
> actually insist on throwing something away if you won't pay their high
price
I haven't experience that kinda attitude, the closest I seen in that is
going into a store & seen something that is obsolete at a price no-one
would pay. For example, the other week I walked into a book store (which
sells second-hand books), one of the books they had there was on the
subject of programming the Z80. This book still had the original price
on it mind you when it was brand new which was about $40 australian.
The shop that was selling it wanted $25. Sure it was a nice book
(still in good condition), but how many people would pay $25 dollars
to learn about programming the Z80. I wouldn't mind it, but for $25
I don't think so, maybe $10-$15. No-one seriously programs for the
Z80 anymore except hobbyists (like myself!). Sadily a price like that
for someone on a budget is just too much! :-(
> ! It sounds really stupid, but it happens. Not too long ago I was dumping
> some real rubbish - garden waste - and asked somebody if they would give
me
> a computer which they were just about to throw into a skip. Instantly,
they
> said 'twenty pounds'. I only had ten pounds on me and offered them that.
> They actually refused the ten pounds, because I didn't have twenty, and
> threw into the skip a machine which had cost them many hundreds a couple
of
> years earlier.
Well that's just rude. Trying to flogg something at £20 when you don't even
know if it works! :-(
> | A little time ago, there was a simular scandal where this guy would
> | flog you a computer for cheap. One was found of frad when it was
> | discovered he had no computers, people would flash out their credit
> | cards before getting the product. Time would pass? Where's our
> | computer? Another bloke who had a simular deal going, sent you a
> | computer, but it didn't work. This bloke was caught selling pieces
> | from a computer which came from a dump! He claimed they were
> | reconditioned! Unfortunately, there are just some people out there
> | who think they are getting a good deal from a cheap computer, but
> | whenever they show those advertisements you know that they are just
> | out to con someone!
> Well, I don't know if that is what people think I am going to do with
their
> old-throw-away machines. I'm not too sure how I can convince them that I
am
> genuine. I have been collecting old machines for about twenty years, and
> would be happy to let someone who might make a donation view my
collection.
> I know there are plenty of 'fly boys' in most walks of life - if they
think
> they can make money out of people then they'll try it. I'm just not like
> that. I'm trying to save a few examples of each home and desktop computer
> because I am interested in them. That's all.
We'll I'd have to say that the people I know, who gave me their ol'
computers
knew me well & would know I wouldn't try making a quick buck out of it!
Sadily, the guy down at the tip probably thought you were going to fix his
old machine & make more money out of it. I'm not suggesting that you are,
but unfortunately it takes time for someone to know you well, before they
start trusting you! But really, if you went into a shop which buy & sell
products from people or to people, you'd generally find that they do the
same thing in order for them to make a profit.
<snip>
> | No, I wasn't referning to emulating CP/M-86 on a 16Bit, I was merely
> | referning
> | to emulating a DOS based CP/M-80 based machine on a laptop! :-) The
> | Amstrad NC200 maybe the way to go in terms of getting CP/M on it.
> | I've only seen the NC100, but I suppose the NC200 is even better
> | looking! :-)
> The NC-200 is just like the NC-100 but with a bigger screen, more memory
and
> a disk drive. Ideal for portable CP/M.
I quite liked the NC-100, I once tried one when I was just looking for an
affordable machine that I could plug & printer into. I should have got one,
but...
I wasn't too fussed about the screen on the NC-100 because I just wanted
something
to do some word processing on & print the stuff out. Obviously, I'd have no
use for
one today, since I got many computers & printers. I loved the keyboard on
the NC-100 though. However, at the time I was just interested in getting a
little computer
to print some stuff out. I don't know why I didn't by one, but well it's
such a
complicated story to tell in here! I was also looking at other Small
computers
like the Atari Portfolio (I should do some checking - I had a ol' computer
magazine which reviews this little computer, I know it could run M$-DOS, but
if
it was IBM compatable or not I don't know!).
> | Fingers Crossed for you! :-)
> Thanks. Please, everybody, let me know if you come across anything like
> these machines within the UK. Thanks.
An Amstrad NC-200 maybe a good machine to hunt down for. It's just a matter
of finding one in the UK which is reasonibly priced.
Regards,
Ross.
Ross Simpson
<snip>
> > But maybe an IBM compatable isn't what you want. CP/M-86 isn't
compatable
> > with good ol' CP/M-80. The problem with that, being that you'd need a
decent
> > laptop to emulate CP/M-80. A 386 should do the job, even if you just
have
> > DOS with a CP/M emulator which is booted up when you turn on the
computer!
> > If you start having emulated machines (on your laptop) which run CP/M
then
> > perhaps you'd be looking into a reasonibly fast 486 (33Mhz perhaps?). A
few
> > years ago I saw 486 laptops sold for under 500 Aussie Dollars. So
perhaps
> > 300 is the going rate now.
> A machine with the ability to read 720K disks could run Personal CP/M
> 2.0x which supports Jim Lopushinsky's Z80 emulator. There you go! *g*
Yeah, that's just a blow it doesn't work on CP/M-86 for the IBM! :-(
Personal CP/M is your field, so if you think that you can use a
reasonibly slow XT/286 maybe 386 which runs Jim's emulator at the
normal speed of a typical CP/M machine, then let the world know what
you can do with it! :-)
But since I'm using CP/M-86 v1.1 & DOS 5, I believe those platforms
need something with a bit more kick in. But then it depends on what
you want. In DOS there is 'no$cpc' (an Amstrad CPC emulator) which
can emulate pretty well on those slower computers (a version is
available for the XT!) & the CP/M disk (available on the 'net in a
disk image for the Amstrad), performs quite well.
Also ZSIM (which I had running on my 386 at one stage), is a kind
of emulator which allows support for CP/M programs (but from what
I believe isn't CP/M itself). Still it was good on my 386! :-)
Regards!
Ross :-)
Kevin Lawton
|| 2) They are relatively expensive to buy. The 286, 386 & 486 laptops
|| that I've seen for sale are priced at about the same as a new
|| low-cost desktop PC - rediculous !
|
| Have you checked some of the computer-oriented swap meets? If you're
| willing to track down parts and do work, you can get some remarkable
| buys.
|
| I bought a 486/40 laptop with a very nice colour screen for $5 at
| such a swap meet. You just needed to add an appropriate power supply
| and battery. I had these left over from another of the same series
| of models (Toshiba T19xx) and used those.
The nearest we seem to get in England which I've found are computer fairs.
These tend to be full of 'market traders' with all sorts of old stuff laid
out on trestle tables. The problem remains that over here any portable
machine seems to maintain a high price. Two or three hundred pounds at least
for a working 386 laptop. Crazy, maybe, but that's the way it is. You can
get a brand-new cheap desktop PC for that much cash.
Funny thing I've noticed: second-hand laptop prices seem to be an expression
of the processor number in pounds. Weird !
Fortunately, 8-bit machines tend to go for peanuts - if you can actually
find any that haven't been dumped. I've more-or-less decided that an Amstrad
CN-200 would fit the bill perfectly as it contains a Z80 processor and will
run CP/M. I just need to find one, now, cheap.
Norm Dresner
> going into a store & seen something that is obsolete at a price no-one
> would pay. For example, the other week I walked into a book store (which
> sells second-hand books), one of the books they had there was on the
> subject of programming the Z80. This book still had the original price
> on it mind you when it was brand new which was about $40 australian.
> The shop that was selling it wanted $25. Sure it was a nice book
> (still in good condition), but how many people would pay $25 dollars
> to learn about programming the Z80. I wouldn't mind it, but for $25
> I don't think so, maybe $10-$15. No-one seriously programs for the
> Z80 anymore except hobbyists (like myself!). Sadily a price like that
> for someone on a budget is just too much! :-(
>
I know that I've seen Z-80 books on eBay recently for under $10US.
Norm
Dosius
> > 2.0x which supports Jim Lopushinsky's Z80 emulator. There you go! *g*
>
> Yeah, that's just a blow it doesn't work on CP/M-86 for the IBM! :-(
>
> Personal CP/M is your field, so if you think that you can use a
> reasonibly slow XT/286 maybe 386 which runs Jim's emulator at the
> normal speed of a typical CP/M machine, then let the world know what
> you can do with it! :-)
Hm, will it run on a PC? It ran fine on my old 486... *g*
Actually, PCPM isn't my field, DOSPLUS is, but they use the same CP/M
BDOS...
> But since I'm using CP/M-86 v1.1 & DOS 5, I believe those platforms
> need something with a bit more kick in. But then it depends on what
> you want. In DOS there is 'no$cpc' (an Amstrad CPC emulator) which
> can emulate pretty well on those slower computers (a version is
> available for the XT!) & the CP/M disk (available on the 'net in a
> disk image for the Amstrad), performs quite well.
Yes, I've used it. At least the CPC emulation community didn't have
its lamer flamers like the Game Boy did... *sigh*
> Also ZSIM (which I had running on my 386 at one stage), is a kind
> of emulator which allows support for CP/M programs (but from what
> I believe isn't CP/M itself). Still it was good on my 386! :-)
Close. You could haxor CP/M into it. I think it used SUPRBDOS or
P2DOS.
>
> Regards!
> Ross :-)
-uso.
Michael J. Mahon
>The nearest we seem to get in England which I've found are computer fairs.
>These tend to be full of 'market traders' with all sorts of old stuff laid
>out on trestle tables. The problem remains that over here any portable
>machine seems to maintain a high price. Two or three hundred pounds at least
>for a working 386 laptop. Crazy, maybe, but that's the way it is. You can
>get a brand-new cheap desktop PC for that much cash.
>Funny thing I've noticed: second-hand laptop prices seem to be an expression
>of the processor number in pounds. Weird !
Sounds like the overseas market is the key here.
Buying an old laptop at a US price of $10-$20 and shipping it to England
for $25-$50 sounds like a great way to beat the local market.
It could even be a business... ;-)
Kevin Lawton
| Kevin Lawton wrote:
|
|| The nearest we seem to get in England which I've found are computer
|| fairs. These tend to be full of 'market traders' with all sorts of
|| old stuff laid out on trestle tables. The problem remains that over
|| here any portable machine seems to maintain a high price. Two or
|| three hundred pounds at least for a working 386 laptop. Crazy,
|| maybe, but that's the way it is. You can get a brand-new cheap
|| desktop PC for that much cash.
|| Funny thing I've noticed: second-hand laptop prices seem to be an
|| expression of the processor number in pounds. Weird !
|
| Sounds like the overseas market is the key here.
|
| Buying an old laptop at a US price of $10-$20 and shipping it to
| England
| for $25-$50 sounds like a great way to beat the local market.
|
| It could even be a business... ;-)
- and a business I may well be very interested in !
The problem is that, unless I was to commute between the US and the UK, I
would need a stateside agent to handle sourcing and shipping the machines.
Now, if there is anybody reading this thread who would be seriously
interested in getting this started please let me know. I guess there would
be all sorts of logistics to sort out - payment, testing, shipping costs -
but it can't be impossible.
Ross Simpson
Norm,
> > I haven't experience that kinda attitude, the closest I seen in that is
> > going into a store & seen something that is obsolete at a price no-one
> > would pay. For example, the other week I walked into a book store (which
> > sells second-hand books), one of the books they had there was on the
> > subject of programming the Z80. This book still had the original price
> > on it mind you when it was brand new which was about $40 australian.
> > The shop that was selling it wanted $25. Sure it was a nice book
> > (still in good condition), but how many people would pay $25 dollars
> > to learn about programming the Z80. I wouldn't mind it, but for $25
> > I don't think so, maybe $10-$15. No-one seriously programs for the
> > Z80 anymore except hobbyists (like myself!). Sadily a price like that
> > for someone on a budget is just too much! :-(
> I know that I've seen Z-80 books on eBay recently for under $10US.
That works out around $20 in our money! ;-)
Regards,
Ross.
Ross Simpson
<snip>
> > > A machine with the ability to read 720K disks could run Personal CP/M
> > > 2.0x which supports Jim Lopushinsky's Z80 emulator. There you go! *g*
> > Yeah, that's just a blow it doesn't work on CP/M-86 for the IBM! :-(
> > Personal CP/M is your field, so if you think that you can use a
> > reasonibly slow XT/286 maybe 386 which runs Jim's emulator at the
> > normal speed of a typical CP/M machine, then let the world know what
> > you can do with it! :-)
> Hm, will it run on a PC? It ran fine on my old 486... *g*
The IBM PC? Personal CP/M might (but I could be wrong - if so the
emulator won't work), if Personal CP/M does, Jims emulator might
work, but it wouldn't be at normal speed.
> Actually, PCPM isn't my field, DOSPLUS is, but they use the same CP/M
> BDOS...
Oops, Sorry, I'm getting you mixed up with the French Luser!
> > But since I'm using CP/M-86 v1.1 & DOS 5, I believe those platforms
> > need something with a bit more kick in. But then it depends on what
> > you want. In DOS there is 'no$cpc' (an Amstrad CPC emulator) which
> > can emulate pretty well on those slower computers (a version is
> > available for the XT!) & the CP/M disk (available on the 'net in a
> > disk image for the Amstrad), performs quite well.
> Yes, I've used it. At least the CPC emulation community didn't have
> its lamer flamers like the Game Boy did... *sigh*
'Lamer Flamers'?
> > Also ZSIM (which I had running on my 386 at one stage), is a kind
> > of emulator which allows support for CP/M programs (but from what
> > I believe isn't CP/M itself). Still it was good on my 386! :-)
> Close. You could haxor CP/M into it. I think it used SUPRBDOS or
> P2DOS.
Yes, it was some kinda free version of CP/M, but not CP/M! :-) Odd!
Regards,
Ross.
CBFalconer
> > > of emulator which allows support for CP/M programs (but from what
> > > I believe isn't CP/M itself). Still it was good on my 386! :-)
>
> > Close. You could haxor CP/M into it. I think it used SUPRBDOS or
> > P2DOS.
>
> Yes, it was some kinda free version of CP/M, but not CP/M! :-) Odd!
I have AltairZ80 running here, from:
<http://www.schorn.ch/cpm/intro.html>
using your choice of OS, from 2.2 to 3.0, or my DOSPLUS, etc. It
simulates everything down to the very ports and boot ROM. The Z80
(or 8080) clock to x86 clock ratio appears to be about 1:25, and
you can measure it.
The original binaries work fine, however when I recompile it under
DJGPP something goes wrong in the boot process. Haven't got
around to looking at it. The original was compiled under Mingw.
Kelly Hall
"CBFalconer" <cbfal...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3EB9BB1B...@yahoo.com...
> The original binaries work fine, however when I recompile it under
> DJGPP something goes wrong in the boot process. Haven't got
> around to looking at it. The original was compiled under Mingw.
I've built it successfully under Linux with GCC. Works great, but it
doesn't seem to take advantage of my SMP system :(
It worked fine with the supplied binaries on my WinXP machine, except that I
couldn't figure out how to get the ANSI.SYS terminal emulator running in a
CMD.EXE window. So now I run the Z80+CP/M emulator on my Linux server and
connect to the process via telnet from the WinXP box. It's rather Rube
Goldburg-esque, but terminal emulation now works fine.
Kelly
John Thompson
> You can map most 8080 registers into x86 registers, but the z80
> registers will need memory storage.
Didn't NEC have an 8086-compatible chip that supported the Z-80
instruction set? "V22" comes to mind as the model number.
--
-John (John.T...@attglobal.net)
Kevin Lawton
|| registers will need memory storage.
|
| Didn't NEC have an 8086-compatible chip that supported the Z-80
| instruction set? "V22" comes to mind as the model number.
Yes, that seems to stir something very deeply buried in my memory from the
dim and distant past. Can't recall anyone putting a machine together using
it, though. It most certainly would, in the early 1980's, have been very
usefull to have had a machine which was compatible with both CP/M and
MS-DOS. I remember being involved in a lot of software conversion work at
the time. Got far too familiar for my own good with the likes of PIP and
Kermit - if only we'd have had TCP/IP networking and FTP in those days !
:-)
David L. Foreman
Maybe V30.
Charles Richmond
>
> Kevin Lawton wrote:
>
> <snip>
> >Not too long ago I...asked somebody if they would give me
> >a computer which they were just about to throw into a skip. Instantly, they
> >said 'twenty pounds'. I only had ten pounds on me and offered them that.
> >They actually refused the ten pounds, because I didn't have twenty, and
> >threw into the skip [the] machine...
>
> There must be a special place in hell for prople whose mind works
> like this. This behavior is simply evil--"Since you seem to value it,
> I will destroy it rather than let you have it."
>
you, it would make them look silly for giving it away. If they
just throw it in the dumpster [skip], then they *never* hear
from it again...
IMHO the best alternative is to convince them to give the stuff
to charity...to some charitable re-sale shop. Then get over there
quick and *buy* it.
--
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Charles and Francis Richmond richmond at plano dot net |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
Freek Heite
>> On Thu, 8 May 2003 09:51:37 +0000 (UTC), "Kevin Lawton"
>> <ke...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>> >| Didn't NEC have an 8086-compatible chip that supported the Z-80
>> >| instruction set? "V22" comes to mind as the model number.
V20 was "8088 + Z80"
V30 was "8086 + Z80"
Randy McLaughlin
V20 was "8088 + 8080 (plus a few other non-z80 instructions)"
V30 was "8086 + 8080 (plus a few other non-z80 instructions)"
Bill Leary
news:slrnbbjet...@starfleet.thompson.us...
> In article <3EB7D5FC...@yahoo.com>, CBFalconer wrote:
>
> > You can map most 8080 registers into x86 registers, but the z80
> > registers will need memory storage.
>
> Didn't NEC have an 8086-compatible chip that supported the Z-80
> instruction set? "V22" comes to mind as the model number.
Almost. V20. 8088 pin compatible which also both the 8088/86 and 8080
instruction sets.
There was, as I recall, another one which was 8086 pin compatible, but I
thought it also had only the 8088/86 8080 instruction set.
Unless, of course, I missed there also being one with a Z80 instruction set.
- Bill
Bill Leary
> V20 was "8088 + 8080 (plus a few other non-z80 instructions)"
> V30 was "8086 + 8080 (plus a few other non-z80 instructions)"
That was it.
Thanks.
- Bill
Dosius
>
> The IBM PC? Personal CP/M might (but I could be wrong - if so the
> emulator won't work), if Personal CP/M does, Jims emulator might
> work, but it wouldn't be at normal speed.
Wouldn't expect it to be, if it drags on MS-DOS 3.30 on a Tandy 1000
HX (7.5 MHz 8086)
>
> > Actually, PCPM isn't my field, DOSPLUS is, but they use the same CP/M
> > BDOS...
>
> Oops, Sorry, I'm getting you mixed up with the French Luser!
*g* Nah, I'm the American Lamer. LOL
>
> > > But since I'm using CP/M-86 v1.1 & DOS 5, I believe those platforms
> > > need something with a bit more kick in. But then it depends on what
> > > you want. In DOS there is 'no$cpc' (an Amstrad CPC emulator) which
> > > can emulate pretty well on those slower computers (a version is
> > > available for the XT!) & the CP/M disk (available on the 'net in a
> > > disk image for the Amstrad), performs quite well.
>
> > Yes, I've used it. At least the CPC emulation community didn't have
> > its lamer flamers like the Game Boy did... *sigh*
>
> 'Lamer Flamers'?
Yeah. See his own site for details...
>
> > > Also ZSIM (which I had running on my 386 at one stage), is a kind
> > > of emulator which allows support for CP/M programs (but from what
> > > I believe isn't CP/M itself). Still it was good on my 386! :-)
>
> > Close. You could haxor CP/M into it. I think it used SUPRBDOS or
> > P2DOS.
>
> Yes, it was some kinda free version of CP/M, but not CP/M! :-) Odd!
Well, in those days, that was all you could do. MYZ80 came with ZPM3.
>
> Regards,
> Ross.
-uso.
Lee Hart
> | Didn't NEC have an 8086-compatible chip that supported the Z-80
> | instruction set? "V22" comes to mind as the model number.
Yes. The NEC V20 was an 8088 that also included the 8080 instruction
set. The V30 was an 8086 that did the same thing. Both chips were
pin-for-pin compatible replacements for the 8088 and 8086 respectively.
If you have an old PC or XT with an 8088 or 8086, you can replace it
with the V20 or V30. Since they take fewer clock cycles to do some
instructions, the computer will typically run norma PC software 20-30%
faster.
Then, get CPM2.COM (CP/eMulator II), a CP/M 2.2 emulator from the Heath
User Group. If it detects a V20 or V30, it will switch it to the 8080
mode. Now your CP/M program is running on a "real" 8080 (not emulated)
at the full clock speed of the V20 or V30 chip.
Since the V20 and V30 were CMOS, they used far less power than the NMOS
8088 and 8086. Thus, many of the early laptops came with V20 or V30
CPUs. I once had a Zenith ZP-150 notebook computer that had one. It ran
CPM2 in 8080 mode quite nicely.
> It most certainly would, in the early 1980's, have been very useful
> to have had a machine which was compatible with both CP/M and
> MS-DOS.
...And there WERE such machines! The Heath/Zenith Z-100 family, and
their H89/Z89 with H-1000 board. The Z-100s had both 8085 and 8088 CPUs,
and the H-1000 had both Z80 and 8086 CPUs.
--
Lee A. Hart Ring the bells that still can ring
814 8th Ave. N. Forget your perfect offering
Sartell, MN 56377 USA There is a crack in everything
leeahart_at_earthlink.net That's how the light gets in - Leonard Cohen
Curtis McCain
You wouldn't happen to still have that ZP-150 would you???
Curtis
snip:
Kevin Handy
> Kevin Lawton wrote:
>>It most certainly would, in the early 1980's, have been very useful
>>to have had a machine which was compatible with both CP/M and
>>MS-DOS.
>
>
> ...And there WERE such machines! The Heath/Zenith Z-100 family, and
> their H89/Z89 with H-1000 board. The Z-100s had both 8085 and 8088 CPUs,
> and the H-1000 had both Z80 and 8086 CPUs.
Don't forget about the Rainbow. It had both an 8088 and a Z80 processor
in it, and a version of CP/M that would run programs on whichever
processer was necessary.
John Thompson
Leon Howell
The CoCo 1 was released in 1980. The Dragon 32 was made in 1982. It's
impossible to clone something before it exists.
Both were based on a Motorola design, and the Dragon had some minor
improvements (parralel port, etc) over the CoCo 1/2. too bad the
dragon didn't continue into the 128k era (1984-1987) and improve on
the CoCo 3.
By the way, the TRS-80 100, 102 & 200 don't run CP/M, but the
distantly related NEC 8400 & 8500 do.
If you want a CP/M laptop, the NEC 8500 looks like the best.
Thomas Martin
Or the S-100 based CompuPro 8/16 with an 8085 and 8088 processor. My
version of CP/M-816 has a Bios that's copyright date is December 14,
1981. Since this is version G of the bios, I'm sure it was available
much earlier.
Tom
Cliff Bedore
or the replacement for the Compupro board (can't remember mfg) that had
a Z80H and a 6MHz 80286. I still have mine down in the basement running
ccpm86(worked last time I booted it )
Cliff
Bob McConnell
Later versions of the NCR Decision Mate V also had the dual
processors. The boot record on the diskettes told it which one to
enable. I believe that they dropped the Z80 before they added the hard
drive, but that was a few years ago. I was involved more in the
development of the PC-4, which was their clone of the IBM XT and
replaced the DM-V.
Bob McConnell
N2SPP
Leon Howell
Oops, I should have looked up the Amstrad NC-200 first! Still, the NEC
8500 is good, and the NC-200 is from the wrong side of the Atlantic.
You can't get that stuff over here.
Kevin Lawton
I guess it depends on which shore you are standing ! :-)
I have just picked up two Amstrad NC-200s on e-bay at bargain prices,
whereas I have never known of an NEC8400 or NEC8500 in the UK. The NC-200
doesn't seem too bad: 16-line LCD screen, 720 Kb floppy drive 128 Kb to 1 Mb
memory, serial & parallel ports, 'real' keyboard. Okay, not quite the spec
of a modern laptop, but then it will run off the rechargables all day !
Only downsides - screen not a full 24 lines and networking might prove a bit
of a challenge - I'm open to ideas on that ! ;-)
Leon Howell
Considering some of the things I've heard about the socialist E.U.'s
overregulation (like the guy who went to jail for selling vegetables
by the pound instead of the kilogram) I'd still say it's the wrong
side of the Atlantic even if I was born there.
> I have just picked up two Amstrad NC-200s on e-bay at bargain prices,
Since I only use honest money - no credit cards - I can't bid on
E-bay. I don't suppose you'd be willing to sell the other one would
you?
> The NC-200 doesn't seem too bad: 16-line LCD screen, 720 Kb floppy drive 128 > Kb to 1 Mb memory, serial & parallel ports, 'real' keyboard.
Not too bad? Sounds perfect to me.
> Okay, not quite the spec of a modern laptop,
Meaning it's reliable, easy to use, and there is no bloatware. You can
really use all that memory!
> Only downsides - screen not a full 24 lines
Big deal. I was hoping to find a Tandy 200 - with 40X16 text! But
then, my vision isn't what it should be, so I prefer 40 collum mode.
It also seems a little friendlyer than the business like 80 collum
text.
> and networking might prove a bit of a challenge - I'm open to ideas on > that ! ;-)
I've heard of ethernet cartridges that plug into a bi-directional
parralell port. Would one of those work? What about the pcmcia port?
Of course, you'll have to know assembly language better than I do...:(
Exegete
Leon Howell wrote:
>>I guess it depends on which shore you are standing ! :-)
>
>
> Considering some of the things I've heard about the socialist E.U.'s
> overregulation (like the guy who went to jail for selling vegetables
> by the pound instead of the kilogram) I'd still say it's the wrong
> side of the Atlantic even if I was born there.
>
>
>>I have just picked up two Amstrad NC-200s on e-bay at bargain prices,
>
>
> Since I only use honest money - no credit cards - I can't bid on
> E-bay.
Of course you can, don't be silly. Most sellers will take money orders
or cashier's checks, and debit cards also work with Paypal.
Roy
I don't suppose you'd be willing to sell the other one would
> you?
>
>
>>The NC-200 doesn't seem too bad: 16-line LCD screen, 720 Kb floppy drive 128 > Kb to 1 Mb memory, serial & parallel ports, 'real' keyboard.
>
>
> Not too bad? Sounds perfect to me.
>
>
>>Okay, not quite the spec of a modern laptop,
>
>
> Meaning it's reliable, easy to use, and there is no bloatware. You can
> really use all that memory!
>
>
>>Only downsides - screen not a full 24 lines
>
>
> Big deal. I was hoping to find a Tandy 200 - with 40X16 text! But
> then, my vision isn't what it should be, so I prefer 40 collum mode.
> It also seems a little friendlyer than the business like 80 collum
> text.
>
>
>>and networking might prove a bit of a challenge - I'm open to ideas on > that ! ;-)
>
>
> I've heard of ethernet cartridges that plug into a bi-directional
> parralell port. Would one of those work? What about the pcmcia port?
> Of course, you'll have to know assembly language better than I do...:(
-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
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Kevin Lawton
|| I guess it depends on which shore you are standing ! :-)
|
| Considering some of the things I've heard about the socialist E.U.'s
| overregulation (like the guy who went to jail for selling vegetables
| by the pound instead of the kilogram) I'd still say it's the wrong
| side of the Atlantic even if I was born there.
Hopefully, the concept of Britain being part of Europe is only transient - a
piece of political madness which it will soon be realised has had its day.
IMHO the French and Germans are welcome to each other - and their cars, meat
and vegetables ! ;-b
|| I have just picked up two Amstrad NC-200s on e-bay at bargain prices,
| Since I only use honest money - no credit cards - I can't bid on
| E-bay. I don't suppose you'd be willing to sell the other one would you?
I really want to acquire another one or two, when funds allow. There are
plenty for sale on e-bay - 2 or 3 every week - it shouldn't be too hard to
get one really.
I only use 'honest money' too. I buy tons of stuff off e-bay. I just mail
the buyer a personal cheque and wait a couple of days, or sometimes call on
them if they are located nearby.
|
|| The NC-200 doesn't seem too bad: 16-line LCD screen, 720 Kb floppy
|| drive 128 > Kb to 1 Mb memory, serial & parallel ports, 'real' keyboard.
|
| Not too bad? Sounds perfect to me.
Okay, okay - I'm sometimes given to understatement for dramatic effect. :-)
Seriouosly, though, it ain't bad at all. The NC-100 only has 8 lines and no
floppy drive so isn't quite so usefull. I'm also experimenting with the
Cambridge Z88. It's a bit cheaper and more compact, but it does have a VT52
terminal program built in ! Looking forward to hooking it up to my Comart
Communicator / Cromenco Z2 / Rair Black Box bits'n'pieces system. :-( :-|
:-)
|| Okay, not quite the spec of a modern laptop,
|
| Meaning it's reliable, easy to use, and there is no bloatware. You can
| really use all that memory!
Yeah - definitely a retrograde step ! Ha, ha, ha, ha, clunk (head fell
off) !
Can't listen to music CDs or play DVD videos on a CP/M palmtop, have to do
weird things like programming and file transfers.
|
|| Only downsides - screen not a full 24 lines
|
| Big deal. I was hoping to find a Tandy 200 - with 40X16 text! But
| then, my vision isn't what it should be, so I prefer 40 collum mode.
| It also seems a little friendlyer than the business like 80 collum text.
The characters on the NC-200 screen are quite easy to read despite the
size - nice shape, etc. The Cambridge Z88 falls down in this area. It is
possible to get plastic-sheet 'fresnel' lenses, which can be cut to shape
and put over a screen to magnify it, which might help if you have a problem.
|
|| and networking might prove a bit of a challenge - I'm open to ideas
|| on > that ! ;-)
|
| I've heard of ethernet cartridges that plug into a bi-directional
| parralell port. Would one of those work? What about the pcmcia port?
| Of course, you'll have to know assembly language better than I do...:(
The thing is: the printer port on the Amstrad is not bi-directional as far
as I know. I'll have to see if the hardware could support it - then write
some sort of driver. I'm not too sure the PCMCIA port is full-spec. I
believe it will only allow access up to 1 Mb memory, and doesn't support all
PCMCIA cards - like modems and network cards. I'm wondering if the UART used
for the serial ports could be re-configured to do ethernet. I'll probably
try either that, or wire another UART into the memory map and try to write
some sort of ethernet driver.
Don Maslin
:> I guess it depends on which shore you are standing ! :-)
: Considering some of the things I've heard about the socialist E.U.'s
: overregulation (like the guy who went to jail for selling vegetables
: by the pound instead of the kilogram) I'd still say it's the wrong
: side of the Atlantic even if I was born there.
:> I have just picked up two Amstrad NC-200s on e-bay at bargain prices,
: Since I only use honest money - no credit cards - I can't bid on
: E-bay. I don't suppose you'd be willing to sell the other one would
: you?
Don't be silly. Of course you can. Make your payment with a postal
money order, cashiers check, or such. It happens every day.
- don
:> The NC-200 doesn't seem too bad: 16-line LCD screen, 720 Kb floppy drive 128 > Kb to 1 Mb memory, serial & parallel ports, 'real' keyboard.
Leon Howell
> | overregulation (like the guy who went to jail for selling vegetables
> | by the pound instead of the kilogram) I'd still say it's the wrong
> | side of the Atlantic even if I was born there.
>
> Hopefully, the concept of Britain being part of Europe is only transient - a
> piece of political madness which it will soon be realised has had its day.
> IMHO the French and Germans are welcome to each other - and their cars, meat
> and vegetables ! ;-b
I still feel sorry for the people who suffer undr that kind of thing.
> I only use 'honest money' too. I buy tons of stuff off e-bay. I just mail
> the buyer a personal cheque and wait a couple of days, or sometimes call on
> them if they are located nearby.
I tried bidding on e-bay once, and they said I had to register to bid.
I tried that, but they required a credit card. How do you register
without one?
Russell Marks
> Seriouosly, though, it ain't bad at all. The NC-100 only has 8 lines and no
> floppy drive so isn't quite so usefull. I'm also experimenting with the
ZCN doesn't support the floppy drive though. I don't have an NC200 and
this is one thing I didn't manage to figure out `remotely' even with
the patient help of an NC200-owning tester.
> The characters on the NC-200 screen are quite easy to read despite the
> size - nice shape, etc. The Cambridge Z88 falls down in this area. It is
ZCN uses rather smaller characters. The NC200's pixel resolution is
480x128, which the built-in OS uses with a 6x8 font for an 80x16
display. ZCN uses a 4x6 font, giving 120x21.
In case there's anything else you missed about ZCN on the '200 :-)
I'll just quote from ZCN's `nc200.txt':
> Using ZCN on an NC200
> ---------------------
>
> The first thing to note is that you should *not* normally run the
> usual `zcn.bin' on an NC200. You should run `zcn200.bin' instead. See
> zcn.txt's installation guide for more on this.
>
> Ok, with that out of the way, here's what the NC200's variant of ZCN
> (zcn200.bin) supports on the '200:
>
> - a 21-line screen;
>
> - the memory card;
>
> - serial and parallel ports;
>
> - the backlight;
>
> - the keyboard (the layout differs internally);
>
> - turning it off :-) (this also differs).
>
> And it *doesn't* support:
>
> - the disk drive;
>
> - the real-time clock;
>
> - most graphics-using ZCN programs (they run, but the graphics don't
> appear);
>
> - some of the ROM-using ZCN programs (the non-working ones will
> crash);
>
> - using the extra RAM as a ramdisk (this may happen at some point, but
> only 48k of it would be available anyway).
-Rus.
Kevin Lawton
||| Considering some of the things I've heard about the socialist E.U.'s
||| overregulation (like the guy who went to jail for selling vegetables
||| by the pound instead of the kilogram) I'd still say it's the wrong
||| side of the Atlantic even if I was born there.
||
|| Hopefully, the concept of Britain being part of Europe is only
|| transient - a piece of political madness which it will soon be
|| realised has had its day. IMHO the French and Germans are welcome to
|| each other - and their cars, meat and vegetables ! ;-b
|
| I still feel sorry for the people who suffer undr that kind of thing.
Me too - and I'm one of them !
I believe that a pound of British beef will always taste better than 454
grammes of French horse meat or German sausage !
One thing I've always particularly admired is the way the American people
are unashamedly pround of America, and America unreservedly supports its
people and industries. I don't believe that Britain will regain its national
pride and self-determination while we have a bunch of lard-arsed French and
German officials sat in Belgium telling us what shape our fruit and
vegetables should be.
|
| http://www.getusout.org
|
| http://www.jbs.org
Thanks for the links - interesting, even though not completely relevant to
me. I still feel that it is necessary for links to forged between nations
along the lines of trade agreements and anti-agression treaties. Peacefull
co-existence, based on mutual understanding, is far preferable to the
alternative I think. To me, Britain's natural allies are America, Canada,
Australia - we speak a similar language, we have similar life styles,
economics, education, government, etc. We have common ancestors and share in
the same heritage and traditions. Moral and religious ideas and freedoms are
almost the same, and our lives are based around the same things: Family,
work, home, friends, money, sports, travel, personal transport, home
entertainment and computers. As they say: 'birds of a feather flock
together'.
|
|| I only use 'honest money' too. I buy tons of stuff off e-bay. I just
|| mail the buyer a personal cheque and wait a couple of days, or
|| sometimes call on them if they are located nearby.
|
| I tried bidding on e-bay once, and they said I had to register to bid.
| I tried that, but they required a credit card. How do you register
| without one?
I've only been using e-bay for a few months. As I best remember, they wanted
about a page of 'personal details' which included a valid e-mail address.
Maybe they apply different rules depending on which country you are
registering from. Notwithstanding my little rant above, in Britain the
credit card isn't 'all powerfull' just yet. :-)
Kevin Lawton
| "Kevin Lawton" <ke...@btinternet.com> wrote:
|
|| Seriouosly, though, it ain't bad at all. The NC-100 only has 8 lines
|| and no floppy drive so isn't quite so usefull. I'm also
|| experimenting with the
|
| ZCN doesn't support the floppy drive though. I don't have an NC200 and
| this is one thing I didn't manage to figure out `remotely' even with
| the patient help of an NC200-owning tester.
Oh bugger ! I was hoping it would. I have only just purchased NC-200, so I
am really new to it yet. Am I right in understanding that ZCN is a
customised version of CP/M ? In that case, I guess it is going to need
some 'heavy patching' to save to the floppy. If I can get networking going
on it okay, then I should be able to save files to shared network resources,
I hope. I have a whole bunch of Linux and BeOS boxes just waiting to welcome
their 'little brother' into the network. (Oh God, I've just realised how sad
that sounds !)
|| The characters on the NC-200 screen are quite easy to read despite
|| the size - nice shape, etc. The Cambridge Z88 falls down in this
|| area. It is
|
| ZCN uses rather smaller characters. The NC200's pixel resolution is
| 480x128, which the built-in OS uses with a 6x8 font for an 80x16
| display. ZCN uses a 4x6 font, giving 120x21.
4 x 6 ? 4 x 6 ? ? ? That's hardly a font ! I guess my permanently
blurred vision will help smooth the edges, but it sounds like a bit more
patching might be required. I think I'm going to be busy ! :-(
| In case there's anything else you missed about ZCN on the '200 :-)
| I'll just quote from ZCN's `nc200.txt':
|
|| Using ZCN on an NC200
|| ---------------------
||
|| The first thing to note is that you should *not* normally run the
|| usual `zcn.bin' on an NC200. You should run `zcn200.bin' instead. See
|| zcn.txt's installation guide for more on this.
||
|| Ok, with that out of the way, here's what the NC200's variant of ZCN
|| (zcn200.bin) supports on the '200:
||
|| - a 21-line screen;
21 lines of blocky space-invaders graphics ?
|| - the memory card;
Even though mine will soon have extra memory fitted inside ?
|| - serial and parallel ports;
Thank God for that !
|| - the backlight;
I see - or at least, I will.
|| - the keyboard (the layout differs internally);
Yipeee ! Input WILL be possible !
|| - turning it off :-) (this also differs).
Resistance is futile ! :-)
|| And it *doesn't* support:
||
|| - the disk drive;
Bugger, bugger, and thrice: bugger.
|| - the real-time clock;
It bloody will by the time I've finished with it !
|| - most graphics-using ZCN programs (they run, but the graphics don't
appear);
Well, maybe not yet anyway . . .
|| - some of the ROM-using ZCN programs (the non-working ones will crash);
and the WORKING ones will NOT crash ?
|| - using the extra RAM as a ramdisk (this may happen at some point, but
only 48k of it would be available anyway).
It sounds like there are busy times ahead.
Kelly Hall
"Kevin Lawton" <ke...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:ba009c$bvp$4...@sparta.btinternet.com...
> One thing I've always particularly admired is the way the American people
> are unashamedly pround of America, and America unreservedly supports its
> people and industries.
Maybe it looks that way from the outside. From the inside, I'd say that the
US consumer ignores domestic suppliers when appropriate. Detroit (ie, the
domestic US auto industry) found that out the hard way in the 80s and 90s.
As for pride, I will concede that I've never noticed a lack of pride in my
fellow countrymen :)
> To me, Britain's natural allies are America, Canada,
> Australia - we speak a similar language, we have similar life styles,
> economics, education, government, etc. We have common ancestors and share
in
> the same heritage and traditions.
Umm, sort of. How many national holidays are shared between the US and the
UK? Maybe Christmas and Easter. You might be nostalgic for your former
colonies, and some of them might even reciprocate. But I haven't noticed
any ground swell of support here in the states for the UK more so than any
of the other countries in Europe. Sure, we liked the Beatles, but we liked
ABBA, too. :)
There are two characteristics of the US that you didn't mention:
a) we don't much care about history
b) we expect other folks to speak our language (ie, we are arrogant)
What these two traits add up to is that as long as the UK wants to back up
the US, that's just dandy. If the UK stopped backing the US, we wouldn't
care any more than when France and Germany stopped backing us. Maybe we'd
rename the friday special at the local restaurant to 'Freedom Fish', but
that would be the extent of it. Basically, I think the US will welcome any
foreign group that wants to bring some money to the table and let us run the
show.
> Moral and religious ideas and freedoms are
> almost the same, and our lives are based around the same things: Family,
> work, home, friends, money, sports, travel, personal transport, home
> entertainment and computers. As they say: 'birds of a feather flock
> together'.
You really must travel more. I've never met anyone who didn't tell me that
their culture didn't value work, family, and their home. As for freedoms,
the US is (to me) a strange mixture of "live free or die" mixed with a
Puritanical streak a mile wide. But in spite of living here most of my
adult life, I still can't predict US politics: the only thing that seems to
help is the phrase "no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the
American people."
To me, the great achievements of the 20th century is that communication and
travel are much more cheap than ever before. The physical gap between "us"
and "them" is shrinking, and with any luck it will help people understand
one another and lead to a better world for all of us.
> I've only been using e-bay for a few months. As I best remember, they
wanted
> about a page of 'personal details' which included a valid e-mail address.
> Maybe they apply different rules depending on which country you are
> registering from. Notwithstanding my little rant above, in Britain the
> credit card isn't 'all powerfull' just yet. :-)
eBay is definitely becoming obnoxious.
Kelly
primo
wrote:
>
>If you want a CP/M laptop, the NEC 8500 looks like the best.
Actually for the brief time that it worked, I thought my Epson PX-8
was the best of the 8 bit laptops, and it did have cp/m right from the
start.
It broke down (I bought it used so no biggie) while my m100 has kept
going for years now. I have more recently added a zenith supersport
286 and a Toshiba 2150cdt both of which are cantidates for myz80.
primo
For the portable users there was the SWP copower which allowed the z80
system to add an 8088 cpu. I had one for my osborne 1 (moved later to
my Xerox 820II), and one in a nonfunctioning Kaypro10 (went to the
spare parts box).
Kaypro even marketed the copower with their systems for a while. Look
for a Kaypro 10+88 for what I had.
It was limited to the disks and video that the host computer had, but
with the later copower II you had up to 980K free for msdos. It wasn't
msdos that had the 640K limit, it was the IBM pc memory map that
mapped io and device roms into high memory.
Terry Gulczynski
"Lee Hart" <leea...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:3EBCB0...@earthlink.net...
> Kevin Lawton wrote:
> > It most certainly would, in the early 1980's, have been very useful
> > to have had a machine which was compatible with both CP/M and
> > MS-DOS.
>
> ...And there WERE such machines! The Heath/Zenith Z-100 family, and
> their H89/Z89 with H-1000 board. The Z-100s had both 8085 and 8088 CPUs,
> and the H-1000 had both Z80 and 8086 CPUs.
> --
And there still is! I still have the H-1000 board, with Z-80 and 8086 CPUs,
CP/M 2.2 and MS-DOS (2.11, I think). I might have to fire it up one day and
see if it still works.
Terry
Kevin Lawton
Okay, maybe there still is in the sense that you still have one - but there
isn't in the sense that I can go and get one. :-(
Leon Howell
> are unashamedly pround of America, and America unreservedly supports its
> people and industries. I don't believe that Britain will regain its national
> pride and self-determination while we have a bunch of lard-arsed French and
> German officials sat in Belgium telling us what shape our fruit and
> vegetables should be.
National independance - Something America is rapidly losing, too - is
critical for both individual liberty (liberty= freedom with
responsibility) and for economic reasons.
> | http://www.getusout.org
> |
> | http://www.jbs.org
>
> Thanks for the links - interesting, even though not completely relevant to
> me. I still feel that it is necessary for links to forged between nations
> along the lines of trade agreements and anti-agression treaties. Peacefull
> co-existence, based on mutual understanding, is far preferable to the
> alternative I think.
Here's another one:
It's mostly U.S. specific, but many of the principles on forign policy
can apply to anyone. Study some of the articles on "entangling
aliances", treaties, "globalism", and, of course, "global enemy number
one", the united nations. You will find that governments are better
off leaving each other alone, and with only the minimum nececary
amount of regulations on trade between countries.
> Moral and religious ideas and freedoms are almost the same,
Supposedly based on The Bible, whitch we all need to get back to.
> and our lives are based around the same things: Family,
> work, home, friends,
Ok so far...
> money,
The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.
> sports,
Practicaly a fase religion.
> entertainment
Definitely a false religion.
> I've only been using e-bay for a few months. As I best remember, they wanted
> about a page of 'personal details' which included a valid e-mail address.
I'll try again.
> Notwithstanding my little rant above, in Britain the
> credit card isn't 'all powerfull' just yet. :-)
I'm glad to hear that. It's getting pretty bad here.
Leon Howell
> > are unashamedly pround of America, and America unreservedly supports its
> > people and industries.
>
> Maybe it looks that way from the outside. From the inside, I'd say that the
> US consumer ignores domestic suppliers when appropriate. Detroit (ie, the
> domestic US auto industry) found that out the hard way in the 80s and 90s.
Buy American! *BOYCOTT* *CHINA*!!!*
> As for pride, I will concede that I've never noticed a lack of pride in my
> fellow countrymen :)
Pride goes before a fall...
> There are two characteristics of the US that you didn't mention:
> a) we don't much care about history
That's one of our biggest problems. We've forgotten our Bible-based
heritage.
> b) we expect other folks to speak our language (ie, we are arrogant)
Any other country would also expect imigrants to learn the local
language. As for english being spoken everywhere, that's England's
fault for colonizing most of the world. It does make some things -
like imports/exports, the internet, etc, more convinient.
> As for freedoms, the US is (to me) a strange mixture of "live free or die" >mixed with a Puritanical streak a mile wide.
Like I said, Liberty is freedom with responsibility. And that
puritanical streak is getting *dangerously* narrow. We desperately
need to get back to the Bible.
> But in spite of living here most of my adult life, I still can't predict US > politics:
Here's that other link again:
That should help you understand U.S. politics, and maybe even do
something about it.
> the only thing that seems to help is the phrase "no one ever went broke
> underestimating the taste of the American people."
We really need to get back to the Bible.
> eBay is definitely becoming obnoxious.
Tell them that. One of our biggest problems here is that we don't do
anything about tese problems. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and
Big Brother has been doing a lot of squeaking lately.
Richard Steven Walz
Leon Howell <purita...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Moral and religious ideas and freedoms are almost the same,
>
>Supposedly based on The Bible, whitch we all need to get back to.
Take your shit-fucking stupid religion outa here, Bitch!
Steve
Kelly Hall
"Leon Howell" <purita...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:ae64f04a.03051...@posting.google.com...
> That's one of our biggest problems. We've forgotten our Bible-based
> heritage.
I agree. And if we don't remember the lessons we learned we're apt to
repeat the same awful mistakes.
> Like I said, Liberty is freedom with responsibility. And that
> puritanical streak is getting *dangerously* narrow. We desperately
> need to get back to the Bible.
Umm, you haven't actually read the results of the last census, have you?
More US citizens attend church regularly now than in the history of the
census. You're probably confusing "no one is going to church" with "no one
is going to *my* church". It wasn't too long ago that a Republican
president had a seance in the white house - imagine the uproar if that
happened today.
> http://www.thenewamerican.com
The DNS is down for that host. Maybe I just don't have enough faith or my
browser could find it.
> We really need to get back to the Bible.
Umm, can you cite any successful democracy mentioned in the Bible? I keep
thinking of the (freed) hebrew slaves deciding for themselves to make a gold
idol when Moses took a powder, and later the crowd outside of Pilate's house
asking for Barabas instead of Jesus. Democracy doesn't come off well in the
books of judaism or christianity, IMHO.
> Tell them that. One of our biggest problems here is that we don't do
> anything about tese problems. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and
> Big Brother has been doing a lot of squeaking lately.
I've asked eBay for an RSS feed, or some other easily filterable listing of
their auctions, and it just ain't gonna happen. Imagine if all of the
egregiously silly sellers stopped showing up in search listings: they'd go
elsewhere, and eBay would lose revenue.
Kelly
Ross Simpson
> > > One thing I've always particularly admired is the way the American
people
> > > are unashamedly pround of America, and America unreservedly supports
its
> > > people and industries.
> > Maybe it looks that way from the outside. From the inside, I'd say that
the
> > US consumer ignores domestic suppliers when appropriate. Detroit (ie,
the
> > domestic US auto industry) found that out the hard way in the 80s and
90s.
> Buy American! *BOYCOTT* *CHINA*!!!*
I don't find that funny at all. But sure one of the reasons why we're in the
position we're in is because of our Govt.
The people here have no right to their views, in other words the public say
one thing & the Govt do another.
But in this latest battle where our Aussie industries Vs the once
(Australian
own) but sold off to the States has brought in a court case to try & close
down their competitors.
But sure a country should have a right to export their goods to other
countries (this is where the problems occur). China probably do a good
job with the states (with all their produce), as here too. But it's
becoming a game where 'Made in <some country>' doesn't necessary mean
anything & even though we are keeping those jobs & factories here the
profits go overseas (because they own & control).
But sure, it's just business! :-( Like a game of monopoly, you land
on my hotels it'll cost you & visa versa. Whoever ends up with all
the money is the winner.
<snip!>
Ross :-\
Anonymous Guy
On 2003-05-16 rst...@deeptht.armory.com (Richard Steven Walz) said:
> Take your shit-fucking stupid religion outa here, Bitch!
Why so hostile, Stevie? Does someone else's religion
somehow threaten you?
Oh; that's right -- you're a godless neo-communist.
Well, better go take your medication now. And remember:
a useful idiot may be useful, but he's STILL an idiot.
-----= Posted via Newsfeed.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeed.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
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Kevin Lawton
The fact that you were allowed to post that into this newsgroup without
being stoned to death is due to your rights and freedoms as an individual as
expressed in ideas which come from Religions based on that Bible. You are
being critical of that which gives you the right and freedom to express that
criticism.
Have you ever stopped to consider just what society would actually be like
were it not for the influence of the three Abrahamic religions ?
As far as I, and I would think any other resonable person, is concerned if
the way in which someone expresses their opinions within a discussion is by
reference to something they believe in then that is a welcome part of the
argument.
You, on the other hand, appear unable to express yourself clearly without
both using foul language and insulting other people, and what you say does
not really make sense. Shit cannot be fucked, certainly not by a religion
anyway.
Russell Marks
relevant there.
"Kevin Lawton" <ke...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> Russell Marks <russel...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> | "Kevin Lawton" <ke...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> |
> || Seriouosly, though, it ain't bad at all. The NC-100 only has 8 lines
> || and no floppy drive so isn't quite so usefull. I'm also
> || experimenting with the
> |
> | ZCN doesn't support the floppy drive though. I don't have an NC200 and
> | this is one thing I didn't manage to figure out `remotely' even with
> | the patient help of an NC200-owning tester.
>
> Oh bugger ! I was hoping it would. I have only just purchased NC-200, so I
Well, ZCN's homepage does mention the lack of floppy drive support.
Not in big flashing letters or anything, but it's there. :-)
> am really new to it yet. Am I right in understanding that ZCN is a
> customised version of CP/M ?
No, it's a clone written from scratch.
> In that case, I guess it is going to need
> some 'heavy patching' to save to the floppy.
There is absolutely no technical documentation whatsoever on the NC200
drive, so good luck with that. I think Kev Thacker said the FDC is
"NEC765 compatible" but I haven't had much luck emulating it with John
Elliott's lib765 (I had a go at this recently). If you want to try
reverse-engineering the ROM, the disk I/O code seems to be in page 14
(the one with messages about Ranger's "test bed" for it), and the rest
of the ROM seems to use that code via the jump table at the start.
Also, ZCN is built around the idea of using a memory card (and it's
designed to support changing cards at any time, so it's slower than it
could be), and doesn't do any of the caching you might expect from
something more truly CP/M-ish which is expecting to deal with
floppies. While ZCN is compatible with CP/M at the BDOS (and to some
extent BIOS) system-call level, the internals are very different.
So if you combine the above problems, getting ZCN to natively support
the floppy would be incredibly difficult. The best approach would
probably be to do what the NC200's built-in OS does, and simply
support copying files to/from the disk - perhaps writing a transfer
program along the lines of rrxfer to call the ROM itself. Even then
you'd have to figure out what the various routines called via the jump
table actually do, and what the entry/exit conditions are for them;
again, this is all completely undocumented.
On a slightly less depressing note, it should be possible to get ZCN
files to/from disk in a fairly painful manner as-is, using runrom,
rrxfer, and the built-in OS. The maximum size of file you could do
this way would be small though, due to limitations of the built-in OS
and the way rrxfer works; I doubt you could manage much more than 30k.
> || The characters on the NC-200 screen are quite easy to read despite
> || the size - nice shape, etc. The Cambridge Z88 falls down in this
> || area. It is
> |
> | ZCN uses rather smaller characters. The NC200's pixel resolution is
> | 480x128, which the built-in OS uses with a 6x8 font for an 80x16
> | display. ZCN uses a 4x6 font, giving 120x21.
>
> 4 x 6 ? 4 x 6 ? ? ? That's hardly a font ! I guess my permanently
> blurred vision will help smooth the edges, but it sounds like a bit more
> patching might be required. I think I'm going to be busy ! :-(
This is something you could easily have uncovered before buying an
NC200. I mean, even ZCN's homepage itself has a reduced-size
screenshot, right at the top. And I think the article on ZCN linked
from there ( http://www.ncus.org.uk/fnov00.htm ) has a full-size
screenshot, albeit in weird colours.
Anyway, you might find patching this one rather difficult. The first
problem is where to put the data for any larger font. I suppose you
could use the ROM's character data, but that wouldn't be quite as
trivial as it probably sounds.
> | In case there's anything else you missed about ZCN on the '200 :-)
> | I'll just quote from ZCN's `nc200.txt':
[...]
> || Ok, with that out of the way, here's what the NC200's variant of ZCN
> || (zcn200.bin) supports on the '200:
> ||
> || - a 21-line screen;
>
> 21 lines of blocky space-invaders graphics ?
No, 8 lines, in `invaders'.
Honestly, if you're going to insult my font design you'll have to do
better than that.
> || - the memory card;
>
> Even though mine will soon have extra memory fitted inside ?
I don't know. If you say precisely how you're going to do this and
where you expect the memory to appear from the NC200's perspective,
maybe then I could at least *guess* whether it'll cause any problems.
> || - the real-time clock;
>
> It bloody will by the time I've finished with it !
ZCN doesn't have file dates (as it takes after CP/M 2.2 in most
respects), so it's debatable how much of a problem this really is. Kev
Thacker noted the NC200's RTC type some time back, so in theory this
is just a matter of getting good enough documentation and doing a bit
of testing.
> || - most graphics-using ZCN programs (they run, but the graphics don't
> appear);
>
> Well, maybe not yet anyway . . .
Ok, let me explain. ZCN started out on the NC100 and is still
primarily for the NC100 - most of what you're complaining about is due
to that. A small font is a good idea when the screen's only 64 pixels
high; the memory card is the only storage medium available on the
NC100; and with only 64k (internal) RAM, an all-RAM configuration will
have the screen in memory at all times.
That last point should hint at what the problem is here, as the
NC200's screen takes twice as much memory as the NC100's. The NC100
memory map for ZCN goes like this:
0000h to 00ffh usual CP/M stuff
0100h to b9ffh TPA
ba00h to e5ffh-ish ZCN code
e600h to efffh ZCN data (font data, buffers, etc.)
f000h to ffffh screen memory
So for years, any program running on ZCN could easily write to the
screen directly at F000h, not having to worry about any memory paging.
Until ZCN 1.3, when I added NC200 support. While the NC100 layout
stayed the same, the NC200 has its own `zcn200.bin' version of ZCN's
`kernel' which uses this memory map:
0000h to 00ffh usual CP/M stuff
0100h to b9ffh TPA
b900h to e5ffh-ish ZCN code
e600h to efffh ZCN data (font data, buffers, etc.)
f000h to ffffh unused
I decided that using the top 4k was too dangerous, given that programs
might (quite reasonably) assume that the screen was there.
The top 16k of this is actually in one of the NC200's four extra RAM
pages, with the 8k screen really remaining in the same page as on the
NC100, and ZCN switches that page in when it needs to write to the
screen. Now, it's still possible for programs to get at the screen
memory with some paging - and I adapted one of the graphics-using
programs which come with ZCN to do just that - but it's a pain, and
you have to do it carefully or it's very easy to screw things up.
Of course, if you *really* want the unpleasant task of converting all
the graphics-using programs, go right ahead. ;-)
> || - some of the ROM-using ZCN programs (the non-working ones will crash);
>
> and the WORKING ones will NOT crash ?
They shouldn't. But if I don't have an NC200 how exactly am I supposed
to test them? The only testing I can do currently is under emulation,
and I can't be certain of the accuracy of that.
> || - using the extra RAM as a ramdisk (this may happen at some point, but
> only 48k of it would be available anyway).
>
> It sounds like there are busy times ahead.
Whatever. Y'know, I think you should try to be realistic about all
this. You're unlikely to get the floppy drive working in the way you
want, and perhaps not at all. You're unlikely to be able to use a
bigger font without rewriting most of the terminal driver and changing
many of the bundled programs. Even using the extra RAM as a ramdisk
would be problematic for anyone not familiar with how ZCN works at a
really low level.
-Rus.
Charles Richmond
>
> *** post for FREE via your newsreader at post.newsfeed.com ***
>
> On 2003-05-16 rst...@deeptht.armory.com (Richard Steven Walz) said:
>
> > Take your shit-fucking stupid religion outa here, Bitch!
>
> Why so hostile, Stevie? Does someone else's religion
> somehow threaten you?
>
> Oh; that's right -- you're a godless neo-communist.
>
> Well, better go take your medication now. And remember:
> a useful idiot may be useful, but he's STILL an idiot.
>
--
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Charles and Francis Richmond richmond at plano dot net |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
Axel Berger
>b) we expect other folks to speak our language (ie, we are arrogant)
No. From my experience, i.e. the people I have ever met, that discribes
the French. Americans may be less proficient in languages than those
from the Netherlands (we all are), but they do try and are thankful
when people use their language. French do and are neither, with the
obvious exceptions of those participating in English speaking
newsgroups.
>As for freedoms, the US is (to me) a strange mixture
Actually with the exception of the Soviet Union I have never been and
felt less free than when over your side. None of my hotel rooms had a
handle on the door, all hire cars locked me in once I put them in
gear - N.B: I WON'T be locked into anything unless sentenced by a court
of law! -, I ridge surrounding an open pit mine, that I wanted to climb
for a look, something totally natural in the Rhineland coal area, i.e.
here, was secured by an electrical trip wire and the immigration
procedure very strongly reminded me of that I used to endure regularly
when visiting in East Germany.
--
Tschö wa
Axel
Kelly Hall
"Axel Berger" <Axel_...@b.maus.de> wrote in message
news:200305152...@b.maus.de...
> No. From my experience, i.e. the people I have ever met, that discribes
> the French. Americans may be less proficient in languages than those
> from the Netherlands (we all are), but they do try and are thankful
> when people use their language. French do and are neither, with the
> obvious exceptions of those participating in English speaking
> newsgroups.
Hmm. Even when I was in France, I found the locals willing to use English
after they heard my attempt at French ;) But then again, I was in the east
and the riviera - I've heard that they aren't so kind to tourists in Paris.
I had no trouble anywhere else in Europe that I travelled, even well-off the
tourist paths. I can't imagine what visiting the US would be like for one
who only spoke a little English - particularly if they left the big cities.
> Actually with the exception of the Soviet Union I have never been and
> felt less free than when over your side.
As Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters once sang:
Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above,
Don't fence me in.
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love,
Don't fence me in.
Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze,
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees,
Send me off forever but I ask you please,
Don't fence me in.
Those days are gone - someplace along the line the US citizenry got scared
and turned to big brother for help. More's the pity. Now we've got
vigilante groups building UAVs for border surveillance - evidently big
brother doesn't even made them feel safe yet. Sheesh.
Kelly
Kevin Lawton
Thanks for all the info, Rus, it is much appreciated and will be very
usefull.
I have decided to acquire an NC-100 as well so that I can better examine the
differences between the two machines. NOw I understand that ZCN was
originally targetted at the NC-100, the limitations on the NC-200 appear
more reasonable. Still, it will be a shame not to have the larger screen or
disk drive available. I'll still be looking into trying to do something in
that direction, but not as a short-term project.
BTW: I was also wondering if anyone knew of any CP/M-like implementation on
the Cambridge Z88 ?
|
| -Rus.
Richard Steven Walz
Kelly Hall <ha...@priest.com> wrote:
>
>"Leon Howell" <purita...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>news:ae64f04a.03051...@posting.google.com...
>> That's one of our biggest problems. We've forgotten our Bible-based
>> heritage.
>
>I agree. And if we don't remember the lessons we learned we're apt to
>repeat the same awful mistakes.
No, if we don't learn from research we'll make mistakes.
One such result is that religion is dogshit!
>> Like I said, Liberty is freedom with responsibility. And that
>> puritanical streak is getting *dangerously* narrow. We desperately
>> need to get back to the Bible.
>
>Umm, you haven't actually read the results of the last census, have you?
>More US citizens attend church regularly now than in the history of the
>census.
---------------------
Liar, the census doesn't ask that.. Church atgendance is lower than
any previous time in the history of the USA, and headed for Europe's
which is less than a third of ours.
>You're probably confusing "no one is going to church" with "no one
>is going to *my* church".
----------------------
No, fewer are going. It's only slightly up lately with 9/11, but down
for 10, 20, 30, and 40 years ago on average.
>> We really need to get back to the Bible.
>
>Umm, can you cite any successful democracy mentioned in the Bible? I keep
>thinking of the (freed) hebrew slaves deciding for themselves to make a gold
>idol when Moses took a powder, and later the crowd outside of Pilate's house
>asking for Barabas instead of Jesus. Democracy doesn't come off well in the
>books of judaism or christianity, IMHO.
---------------------------
Religion is bullshit.
>> Tell them that. One of our biggest problems here is that we don't do
>> anything about tese problems. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and
>> Big Brother has been doing a lot of squeaking lately.
--------------------------
You're just an impotent frightened white man. Go die somwhere.
Steve