COMAL
arobase, Salle multimédia
- "The COMAL Handbook, 2nd Ed"
Len LINDSAY
Reston Publishing Company, 1984
(Say, $10 + postage.)
Yours Sincerely,
"French Lurker"
Bruce Jones
They have two listed. One for $10.00 US, one for $12.00 US
I have purchased many used books from through them with
excellent results.
regards
Bruce
PS
I hope to hear today from the search group about the Gary Kildall article.
"arobase, Salle multimédia" <arobase1....@wanadoo.fr> wrote in message
news:975n9v$k8l$1...@wanadoo.fr...
arobase, Salle multimédia
commercial Web site in Scotland: I have finally found how
to test it on an IBM Clown, using 22NICE.
Among the CP/M computer that the INSTALL program
recognizes is KAYPRO, which was a best-seller in the USA.
So, to continue my last message:
put 22NICE and DEMCOM and INSTALL.*
on a directory.
Type: GENCOM DEMCOMAL DISPLAY=KAYPRO
(instead of showing garbage on the screen, 22NICE will
now be able to recognize most of the screen escape codes
of DEMCOMAL.)
Type: GENCOM INSTALL
(Nothing special, since it is line driven.)
Now, at the prompt ("A:/>") we are now able to run
the CP/M program INSTALL under MeSsy-DOS.
Type: INSTALL
Enter: DEMCOMAL (since this is the name of our version)
Enter: (D) Get installation from disc
(...)
Enter: (D) Kaypro 2
(...)
Enter: (G) Installation done
Save installation (Y/N) (Enter Y(es) )
and DEMCOMAL will now send the Kaypro escape codes
that 22NICE is able to recognize.
A:/>demcomal
*** COMAL-80/z80 rev. CP/M 2.10 ***
etc...
(Nota Bene: COMAL uses "BYE" instead of "SYSTEM"...
See the file CMDLIST.DOC.)
You now have a new interpreter to play with. Enjoy!
Yours Sincerely,
"French Lurker"
Bruce Jones
The full cost to buy and ship to France
is $18.63 US or 131.21 francs.
Let me know if that is OK, and I will get it to you.
BTW
If you have VISA, Mastercard or American Express, you can
purchase the book yourself from Abebooks as they ship to
all nations.
Regards,
Bruce
Alan Jones
<arobase1....@wanadoo.fr> wrote:
>Regarding the demo version of COMAL that I found on a
>commercial Web site in Scotland: I have finally found how
>to test it on an IBM Clown, using 22NICE.
>
>Among the CP/M computer that the INSTALL program
>recognizes is KAYPRO, which was a best-seller in the USA.
>Yours Sincerely,
>"French Lurker"
I was a C64/128 COMAL 2.0 user. I have both the CP/M COMAL demo and
full versions (I'm not sure where, I never used it.) On the C64/128
the CP/M version was only of interest because it was chaper than the
COMAL 2.0 cartridge. A major feature of COMAL 2.0 is ML packages,
particularly when placed in EPROM, and this is one of incompatabilites
bewteen the two versions. Also, the C128 was not an ideal CP/M
computer. I don't think COMAL was ever popular on CP/M.
There are native COMAL impleminations for IBM PCs. I don't have any
of them. I know there are C64 and CP/M emulators for IBM PCs, but I
have not tried them. (Too little time.) However, I do have some
interest and I want to encourage you to evalute them and share your
results here.
I have an extra copy of Len Lindsay's The Comal Handbook, Second
Edition. However, you probably want the later loose leaf Common COMAL
Reference, which I also have. I also have all of the COMAL Today
nesletters and disks. I'm not inclined to part with any of it. In
fact, if I could get some more copies of the Handbook, I would try to
teach an informal COMAL course. I think Len still holds the copywrite
for these materials, so you would to get permission to reproduce them.
Alan Jones
arobase, Salle multimédia
OK. You don't say where you are living, but with such
an English name, I am assuming that you are either
English or American (or Australian ?).
Me, I am French (European).
I am a fan of Gary Kildall and his CP/M.
Over the years, I have specialized in collecting little
known programming languages for CP/M.
(Soon, MUMPS 4.0 will be available on the
retroarchive Web site.)
Since I am an Old Timer (I started programming
with COBOL compilers on IBM mainframes),
I prefer interpreters.
COMAL is the best interpreter that I have found
under CP/M so far. (I could not care less if lemings
"are used by" C++ under Windows...)
So, I hearthily encourage you to make available on the
http://www.retroarchive.org Web site everything that
can be easily copied.
I am ready to retype any interesting doc (like the
Common COMAL Reference that you mention:
never heard about it. I had heard about a COMAL
(Nucleus) Definition but, so far, nobody has answered
my calls for a photocopy of it.), but the problem is that
I am living in Europe, and you are probably several
thousands miles away.
Since you are the most knowledgeable person so far
to appear in this newsgroup regarding COMAL,
I can only encourage you to put together enough
interesting COMAL stuff and release it.
Only you can do it. If you need to retype or
disassemble anything, let me know.
Of course, you could set up an Internet
COMAL Web site. But it is a lot of work.
In the USA, Steve Walz (on the West coast)
is quite active collecting interesting CP/M stuff.
On the East coast, the retroarchive Web site
is the best.
In England, John Elliott is the only CP/M site...
In Germany, www.gaby.de is the best, but
99% of the stuff is in German and only
80 millions person manage to speak it.
(But it would be a good repository
at the center of Germany: I think that
I remember that it is housed in Munich.)
(In Australia, I don't know.)
Well, what more can I say?
You are, of course, right to want to keep
your precious original paper copies.
The only problem is that a way must be
found to make them available online...
and the best way to do it that I have
found so far is to retype all the stuff...
I don't want to discourage you, but
be warned that your "interest" will
probably lead to more work that
you had expected!
Yours Sincerely,
"French Lurker"
Steve
> >>is quite active collecting interesting CP/M stuff.
>
>
> Merci bien,
> Freek.
-------------------------
I don't have anymore than what's in the retroarchive, and a few other
things, and most of mine is not online, but if you ask I will check
for it!
-Steve
--
-Steve Walz rst...@armory.com ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew
-Electronics Site!! 1000 Files/50 Dirs!! http://www.armory.com/~rstevew
Europe Naples, Italy: ftp://ftp.unina.it/pub/electronics/ftp.armory.com
anon...@bogus_address.con
On 2001-03-15 fhe...@knoware.nl said:
>"arobase, Salle multimédia" <arobase1....@wanadoo.fr> wrote:
>
>>>In the USA, Steve Walz (on the West coast)
>>>is quite active collecting interesting CP/M stuff.
>
>URL, s'il vous plait?
>
>Merci bien,
>Freek.
-> Steve Walz ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew
-> Electronics Site!! 1000 Fichiers/50 Dirs!! http://www.armory.com/~rstevew
-> Europe: Naples, Italy: ftp://ftp.unina.it/pub/electronics/ftp.armory.com
Ca ne fait rien, monsieur! :)
fhe...@knoware.nl
>>is quite active collecting interesting CP/M stuff.
URL, s'il vous plait?
Merci bien,
Freek.
Alan Jones
<arobase1....@wanadoo.fr> wrote:
>Yahoo! Finally something interesting about COMAL!
>
>OK. You don't say where you are living, but with such
>an English name, I am assuming that you are either
>English or American (or Australian ?).
American.
>Me, I am French (European).
I know COMAL was more popular in some European countries, but I don't
know how popular it was in France.
>Over the years, I have specialized in collecting little
>known programming languages for CP/M.
>(Soon, MUMPS 4.0 will be available on the
>retroarchive Web site.)
Good! Of course your web site is not open yet.
>COMAL is the best interpreter that I have found
>under CP/M so far.
It is also the best interpreter available for the C64/128 in native
mode, and the CP/M version runs on the 128 as well.
>So, I hearthily encourage you to make available on the
>http://www.retroarchive.org Web site everything that
>can be easily copied.
I don't have a scanner, and I'm certainly not going to type
"everything" in. Have any of the copywrite holders granted permission
for this? I'm not sure how to contact Len Lindsay, but he probably
has files for the original materials.
Macharsoft still supports COMAL, and might be willing to provide web
space to archive old 8-bit materials. I'm not aware any web sites
with good archives of 8-bit COMAL stuff. videocam.net.au does have
some COMAL stuff available. You could also try searching old
comp.sys.cbm archives for "COMAL". Phil Herberer (ph...@herberer.org?)
once posted that he had ALL of the COMAL stuff except for the 128
cartridge.
>I am ready to retype any interesting doc (like the
>Common COMAL Reference that you mention:
>never heard about it.
This was writen by Len Lindsay in 1987 to replace his COMAL Handbook.
It was written to cover COMAL implementations for the C64, 128 (two
different Unicomal 2.0 cartridges), CP/M (COMAL 2.1), IBM-U
(Unicomal/MS-DOS COMAL 2.10), IBM-M (Mytech, MS-DOS COMAL 2.0). The
older COMAL Handbook does not specificaly cover the CP/M version.
Note also there were additional implementations of COMAL, and some of
them were actively supported, by the Comal Users Group, USA, Ltd. and
featured in later issues of COMAL Today.
> I had heard about a COMAL
>(Nucleus) Definition but, so far, nobody has answered
>my calls for a photocopy of it.),
I don't know about "Nucleus", but COMAL-80 (kernal?) is an open
standard, and anyone is free to write thier own implementation. It
would be great to have an open source Linux version available!
> but the problem is that
>I am living in Europe, and you are probably several
>thousands miles away.
But it's not too far in terms of key clicks.
>Since you are the most knowledgeable person so far
>to appear in this newsgroup regarding COMAL,
Aw shucks, I'm just a dumb 'ol enthusiastic user. COMAL transformed
the C64 from something almost useless, to something very usefull.
>I don't want to discourage you, but
>be warned that your "interest" will
>probably lead to more work that
>you had expected!
And, I don't want to discourage you but...
I know how to remain silent, or say no. I already have a huge backlog
of hobbist technical papers that I prommised to write, and other
commitments. I'm not making any new promises.
>Yours Sincerely,
>"French Lurker"
Alan Jones
arobase, Salle multimédia
>but I don't know how popular it was in France.
Totally unknown. The French "Education Nationale" had its
own PL: LSE ("Langage Symbolique d'Enseignement": a
BASIC with French syntax). For the record, they also
had their own "disks" standard: a 2.8" disk in a hard case
BUT WITHOUT SLIDING COVER: the disk was directly
exposed (a kind of rigid 5.25" cover, if you prefer. People
are now collecting them (like Sinclair QL "mini-floppy" (in
fact a very small tape).).
>>Over the years, I have specialized in collecting little
>>known programming languages for CP/M.
>>(Soon, MUMPS 4.0 will be available on the
>>retroarchive Web site.)
> Good! Of course your web site is not open yet.
All my computers are Z-80. Only very, very recently
have I been given an old IBM Clown. When I tried
to run an Internet browser on it, I saw: "6 bytes per
second"... How do you run a server on something
as slow as this? (If you want to give me something
better to help, by all means do so!)
>I don't have a scanner, and I'm certainly not going to type
>"everything" in. Have any of the copywrite holders granted permission
>for this? I'm not sure how to contact Len Lindsay, but he probably
>has files for the original materials.
>Macharsoft still supports COMAL, and might be willing to provide
>web space to archive old 8-bit materials.
The first thing that I did after discovering COMAL was hunt for it
on the Internet using a "research engine". The only things that I have,
so far, is the DEMCOMAL.ZIP file. No book, no doc, nothing.
My message to Macharsoft has not been answered (I sent it before
deciding to launch a public appeal on comp.os.com).
I found a Disc Jockey named Len Lindsay in Madison, WI,
but he did not answer my message too.
So, if you know how to get an answer from anybody
that you know that is knowlegegeable about COMAL...
you are (again) the only one able to do it...
>I don't know about "Nucleus", but COMAL-80 (kernal?) is an open
>standard, and anyone is free to write thier own implementation. It
>would be great to have an open source Linux version available!
Just find me a paper copy of it, and I will do a CP/M Plus
implementation of COMAL. I have been disassembling and
recreating the source code of several interpreters for more
than 10 years. I just need the good documentation.
>> but the problem is that
>>I am living in Europe, and you are probably several
>>thousands miles away.
>But it's not too far in terms of key clicks.
How do you send something as big as the written documentation
of anything complex? If I remember well, "The COMAL
Handbook" is 427 pages big...
>>Since you are the most knowledgeable person so far
>>to appear in this newsgroup regarding COMAL,
>Aw shucks, I'm just a dumb 'ol enthusiastic user. COMAL transformed
>the C64 from something almost useless, to something very usefull.
>>I don't want to discourage you, but
>>be warned that your "interest" will
>>probably lead to more work that
>>you had expected!
>And, I don't want to discourage you but...
>I know how to remain silent, or say no. I already have a huge backlog
>of hobbist technical papers that I prommised to write, and other
>commitments. I'm not making any new promises.
>Alan Jones
I am expecting to receive (if everything goes right) "The COMAL
Handbook" in about 15 days. So, during those 15 days, the
future of COMAL rests upon your shoulders. Either you keep
your COMAL stuff to yourself, or you share what I think is
a very good programming language with us, CP/M fans.
(Are you afraid to bankrupt MicroShit by doing so?)
(How many advertisements regarding COMAL have
you seen recently in the computer press? Is COMAL
dead or alive? Are you afraid to resurrect it?)
Yours Sincerely,
"French lurker"
anon...@bogus_address.usa
On 2001-03-17 arobase1....@wanadoo.fr said:
>...Only very, very recently have I been given an old IBM Clown.
>When I tried to run an Internet browser on it, I saw: "6 bytes
>per second"... How do you run a server on something as slow as
>this? (If you want to give me something better to help, by all
>means do so!)...
|
Quel processeur est en votre 'IBM | What processor is in your IBM
clone?' Et quel 'browser' utilez- | clone? And what browser did
vous? | you use?
|
Je suggest que vous utilez NET-TAMER | I suggest that you use NET-TAMER
pour DOS...le version 'XT.' C'est | for DOS...the 'XT' version. It's
un petit peu difficile a' configurer | a bit difficult to configure
(les DOCS sont fou), mais le programme | (the DOCs are nuts), but the program
est bon. Et rapide! | is good. And fast!
|
http://www.nettamer.net
Lee Hart
describe it a little bit?
--
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
Charles Richmond
>
> I have never heard of COMAL before. Just out of curiosity, can someone
> describe it a little bit?
>
June, 1981 issue of "Dr. Dobb's" magazine. Later in the same magazine
there are some COMAL~80 program listings...it looks sort of like
QBasic in that it seems to have closed procedures.
--
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Charles and Francis Richmond <rich...@plano.net> |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
Paul Schlyter
Lee Hart <leea...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> I have never heard of COMAL before. Just out of curiosity, can someone
> describe it a little bit?
a BASIC-like syntax and environment but Algol/Pascal-like semantics.
Thus COMAL was an interpreter, it had line numbers and an editor
based on line numbers - just like BASIC interpreters. But it also
had functions/procedures/data structures like Algol/Pascal.
Basically, COMAL was a "Better Basic" inspired by Algol/Pascal. The
purpose of COMAL was to be used in teaching programming.
When Turbo Pascal appeared and made Pascal convenient also on micros,
COMAL died. The COMAL enhancements to BASIC later made its way into
other BASIC's. E.g. Visual Basic includes most of the enhancements
in COMAL.
I think COMAL was an acrynym, meaning "COMmon ALgorithmic language",
but it ended up not being so common....
--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter, Swedish Amateur Astronomer's Society (SAAF)
Grev Turegatan 40, S-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
e-mail: pausch at saaf dot se or paul.schlyter at ausys dot se
WWW: http://hotel04.ausys.se/pausch http://welcome.to/pausch
Axel Berger
ASM>How do you send something as big as the written documentation of
ASM>anything complex? If I remember well, "The COMAL Handbook" is 427
ASM>pages big...
No problem at all: A page contains at most about 6 kB of text. So
unless it blown up by graphics and/or sillyness you have something like
3 MB, i.e. nearly nothing by today's standards.
--
Tschö wa
Axel
Fred J. Scipione
"arobase, Salle multimédia" <arobase1....@wanadoo.fr> wrote in message
news:98ved5$1vp$2...@wanadoo.fr...
... <snip> ...
> All my computers are Z-80. Only very, very recently
> have I been given an old IBM Clown. When I tried
> to run an Internet browser on it, I saw: "6 bytes per
> second"... How do you run a server on something
> as slow as this? (If you want to give me something
> better to help, by all means do so!)
... <snip> ...
You could check out "MINIX". It is a UNIX(tm) type system
which will run on PC/XT/286 class "Clown"s and support
internet client and server applications. If your old
computer is a '386 or better, you can even have an
X-Windows browser instead of LYNX. I don't think UZI
on any Z80 box will have enough horsepower to ever
support an internet server though. :-)
Steve
>
> All my computers are Z-80. Only very, very recently
> have I been given an old IBM Clown. When I tried
> to run an Internet browser on it, I saw: "6 bytes per
> second"... How do you run a server on something
> as slow as this? (If you want to give me something
> better to help, by all means do so!)
Hahahahah! It's not really that slow, it just doesn't update that
display often enough!! When the data comes in bursts it doesn't pick the
right time to sample the rate!!
Steve
arobase, Salle multimédia
you wrote: "(...) you have something like 3 MB,
i.e. nearly nothing by today's standards."
Yes, but the bigger floppy drive that I have on
my CP/M computers only hold 800 KB...
(800 KB is 400 pages of WS4 text.)
Yours Sincerely,
"French Lurker"
arobase, Salle multimédia
It is funny that you mention MINIX, since, a few years ago,
when wondering if I should stop using CP/M Plus, I read
Andrew Tannenbaum's book and wrote him.
He hand-wrote me back. He seems to be like Gary
Kildall, more interested in programming than promoting.
After a few months of "soul-searching", I finally
concluded that it was better to keep CP/M Plus
since I had managed (at the time, before Caldera
released the original source code) to disassemble
the BDOS3.
Now, I think that the logical thing to do is to
implement a version of CP/M Plus for 80386+.
(A personal question: I am trying to write a
portable program (running under CP/M and
MS-DOS (by the way, do you have a PC ?))
which would display some characters. The
problem is that I need to "show" some
particular characters. Since those characters
are hexadecimal numbers, I can't simply
display them in upper case. So, my question
is: which "display attributes" (e.g. underlined,
bold, italic, etc) is your screen and printer
able to do? So far, on my old IBM Clown,
I was only able to change the color of the
characters! (Not very useful, until you have
a color printer:...) (I don't have a color
printer.) )
Yours Sincerely,
"French Lurker"
Richard Plinston
>
> Now, I think that the logical thing to do is to
> implement a version of CP/M Plus for 80386+.
DRI produced DOS Plus which was a single user version of Concurrent-DOS.
It could run MS-DOS programs and CP/M-86 and MP/M-86 programs and even
had some residual mult-tasking capabilities.
> (A personal question: I am trying to write a
> portable program (running under CP/M and
> MS-DOS (by the way, do you have a PC ?))
> which would display some characters. The
> problem is that I need to "show" some
> particular characters. Since those characters
> are hexadecimal numbers, I can't simply
> display them in upper case. So, my question
> is: which "display attributes" (e.g. underlined,
> bold, italic, etc) is your screen and printer
> able to do? So far, on my old IBM Clown,
> I was only able to change the color of the
> characters! (Not very useful, until you have
> a color printer:...) (I don't have a color
> printer.) )
The IBM PC, when using text mode rather than graphics mode, originaly
had one attribute byte per text character. On mono screens this is used
to indicate 'bright', 'inverted', 'underline', flashing', etc. On
colour screens it is used to indicate colours.
The solution to your problem is to get a mono or a hurcules adaptor and
a mono screen.
RTFM.
Axel Berger
A>Je suggest que vous utilez NET-TAMER|I suggest that you use NET-TAMER
A>pour DOS...le version 'XT.' C'est |for DOS...the 'XT' version. It's
A>un petit peu difficile a' configurer|a bit difficult to configure
I have just downloaded and tried this on a friend's 386. Undoubtedly it
is a great achievement and automatic email retrieval worked good enaugh
to make it sensible on my HP 700 with a mobile connection, but the
browser was useless. I tried it on the most friendly site I know,
namely ebay which stays fully useable with everything than can be
turned off in Netscape, but I didn't see a useful thing on the nettamer
screen.
Admittedly, after ten minutes worth of trial I can't really make a
judgement, but unless I have made a glaring omission it is not really
of use in the Web as it is today, although quite probably very much so
in a Web as it could and ought to be with sensible people.
--
Tschö wa
Axel
anon...@bogus_address.con
On 2001-03-25 Axel_...@su2.maus.de (Axel Berger) said:
>I have just downloaded and tried [NET-TAMER] on a friend's 386.
>Undoubtedly it is a great achievement and automatic email retrieval
>worked good enough to make it sensible on my HP 700 with a mobile
>connection, but the browser was useless. I tried it on the most
>friendly site I know, namely ebay which stays fully useable with
>everything than can be turned off in Netscape, but I didn't see a
>useful thing on the nettamer screen.
Yes. NET-TAMER does not work with JAVA-based web sites, or with
sites which use the ultra-contemporary HTML graphics extensions.
>Admittedly, after ten minutes worth of trial I can't really make a
>judgement, but unless I have made a glaring omission it is not
>really of use in the Web as it is today, although quite probably
>very much so in a Web as it could and ought to be with sensible
>people. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~
Very well said! :)
NET-TAMER works acceptably well with web sites that use conventional
HTML encoding (such as personal web sites, or commercial sites that
offer a 'minimal HTML' or 'text-only' version). And, of course,
NET-TAMER is wonderful for e-mail, newsgroups and FTP.
But if you want to 'surf' the super-fancy, ultra-graphical commercial
web sites, then, no...NET-TAMER is not for you.
However, LYNX FOR DOS might give you what you need. The latest version
even supports SHTML.
anon...@bogus_address.con
On 2001-03-26 c...@pdlmail.demon.co.uk said:
> AN> However, LYNX FOR DOS might give you what you need...
>
>I'll second that; I just downloaded and installed Lynx this
>weekend and confirm that it works extremely well...
>
>I have no idea if anyone has done a port to CP/M-86.
They haven't.
I think there are only about 6 people on earth who are still
writing any kind of software for CP/M-86. And porting LYNX
to CP/M-86 is way beyond my poor programming abilities.
We'll add that to the CP/M-86 'Wish List,' though...along with
a port of ZIP/UNZIP, and possibly a VT100-compliant communi-
cations program.
A 'Solitaire' game would be nice, too! :)
.
>I think there are only about 6 people on earth who are still
>writing any kind of software for CP/M-86. And porting LYNX
>to CP/M-86 is way beyond my poor programming abilities.
If I could only win the Lottery and sit home all day..heck, I'd give it
a try or at least try to be a contributor:)
The Gif decoder port took nearly two months, I cringe at the thought
of trying to get a jpeg reader working.
BTW Hi,Kirk.
-Ken Mauro.
anon...@bogus_address.con
On 2001-03-26 ufo@we're.back(.) said:
>If I could only win the Lottery and sit home all day..heck, I'd
>give it a try...
Don't know if your bride would put up with THAT for very long! :)
>-Ken Mauro.
Hey, Ken, let me know your current e-mail address.
arobase, Salle multimédia
Thanks for the mention of DOS+.
However, since it is able to run both MS-DOS and CP/M programs,
it must be quite complex.
I still think that it would be simpler to make a 32-bit version of CP/M
Plus,
just by reusing the 8080 source codes.
Yours Sincerely,
"French Lurker"
Axel Berger
no graphics
no Javascricpt (and of course no Java)
no Stylesheets
no anything-that-can-be-turned-off
and still looks normal and works well - not so with Net-tamer.
But as you said:
A>And, of course, NET-TAMER is wonderful for e-mail, newsgroups and FTP.
Here I began to ask for a source for
A>LYNX FOR DOS might give you what you need. The latest version even
A>supports SHTML.
but now replace that question with: Thanks Pete.
--
Danke
Axel
Richard Plinston
>Richard,
>Thanks for the mention of DOS+.
>
>However, since it is able to run both MS-DOS and CP/M programs,
>it must be quite complex.
It is not a lot larger than MS-DOS alone. Partly this is because MS-DOS copied
CP/M so I suspect that much code is reused internally, and mostly because DRI
did a much better job. Compared to Concurrent-DOS it is quite a lot less
complex.
>I still think that it would be simpler to make a 32-bit version of CP/M Plus,
Simpler for whom??
> just by reusing the 8080 source codes.
Yes, but look at what that resulted in last time when SCP did that.
Phil Heberer
> >COMAL is the best interpreter that I have found
> >under CP/M so far.
>
> It is also the best interpreter available for the C64/128 in native
> mode, and the CP/M version runs on the 128 as well.
I'd certainly agree with BOTH of these statements! <grin>
> I don't have a scanner, and I'm certainly not going to type
> "everything" in. Have any of the copywrite holders granted permission
> for this? I'm not sure how to contact Len Lindsay, but he probably
> has files for the original materials.
I haven't heard a peep out of Len since about 1988, have you? I had fairly
frequent contact with him when the "COMAL Today" newsletter was being published.
> Macharsoft still supports COMAL, and might be willing to provide web
> space to archive old 8-bit materials. I'm not aware any web sites
> with good archives of 8-bit COMAL stuff. videocam.net.au does have
> some COMAL stuff available. You could also try searching old
> comp.sys.cbm archives for "COMAL". Phil Herberer (ph...@herberer.org?)
> once posted that he had ALL of the COMAL stuff except for the 128
> cartridge.
Yes, I do probably have just about everything imported to the USA that Len
carried, and kick myself that I didn't get a COMAL 128 cartridge. The cost (over
$200 at the time) was a bit hard to justify, especially since I had the Super
COMAL cartridge 2.10 that allowed using the 128's 80-col video mode. <g> BTW,
that's Ph...@heberer.org or heb...@cowtown.net. It's a common mistake to put the
"r" before the "b", so you are forgiven. <g>
> >I am ready to retype any interesting doc (like the
> >Common COMAL Reference that you mention:
> >never heard about it.
>
> This was writen by Len Lindsay in 1987 to replace his COMAL Handbook.
> It was written to cover COMAL implementations for the C64, 128 (two
> different Unicomal 2.0 cartridges), CP/M (COMAL 2.1), IBM-U
> (Unicomal/MS-DOS COMAL 2.10), IBM-M (Mytech, MS-DOS COMAL 2.0). The
> older COMAL Handbook does not specificaly cover the CP/M version.
> Note also there were additional implementations of COMAL, and some of
> them were actively supported, by the Comal Users Group, USA, Ltd. and
> featured in later issues of COMAL Today.
Yes, I also have the "Common COMAL Reference" as well. ;)
> I don't know about "Nucleus", but COMAL-80 (kernal?) is an open
> standard, and anyone is free to write thier own implementation. It
> would be great to have an open source Linux version available!
I wasn't aware that the COMAL-80 kernal was open standard, but agree that a
Linux version would be great! I have a demo of either the Mytech or Unicomal
MS-DOS COMAL 2.0 that Len sent me just before he shut down his COMAL Users
Group, USA, Ltd. Last I heard from him, he was moving out of Madison, WI, to
take a new job, but I don't recall now where he went.
> Aw shucks, I'm just a dumb 'ol enthusiastic user. COMAL transformed
> the C64 from something almost useless, to something very usefull.
Indeed it did! I had such great plans for my C-64 COMAL 2.0 cartridge and the
MSD-2 drive I used to have, but never seemed to quite finish anything. <sigh>
Sort of the story of my life sometimes! <grin> Procrastinators unite! LOL!
> >I don't want to discourage you, but
> >be warned that your "interest" will
> >probably lead to more work that
> >you had expected!
>
> And, I don't want to discourage you but...
> I know how to remain silent, or say no. I already have a huge backlog
> of hobbist technical papers that I prommised to write, and other
> commitments. I'm not making any new promises.
I'm glad to see some interest in COMAL again, and will see what I can do in the
next few weeks for getting either the "Common COMAL Reference" or the CP/M
COMAL-80 manuals scanned into readable format. I truly don't think Len would
mind, and he might even be a bit gratified that there is interest again like *I*
am! <g>
Thanks also to the "French Lurker" who e-mailed me today!
Cheers,
Phil Heberer
Phil Heberer
> If I could only win the Lottery and sit home all day..heck, I'd give it
> a try or at least try to be a contributor:)
>
> The Gif decoder port took nearly two months, I cringe at the thought
> of trying to get a jpeg reader working.
A JPEG reader for the Commodore-64-128 has been done, so why not CP/M? Obiously,
the progressive JPEGs are a nightmare, but otherwise normal JPEGs aren't too
bad. I'm not the programmer, so don't know how it was done, but it certainly
seems feasible to me!
Cheers,
Phil Heberer
.
Hi, Phil.
>A JPEG reader for the Commodore-64-128 has been done, so why
>not CP/M? Obiously,...
Yes, I have heard about that one (maybe written in C) but have never
been able to get my hands on the source to at least take a look.
I am not a programmer by trade (well, enough to craft a jpeg
decoder from scratch;) but have managed to cobble and port working
msdos stuff (from time to time) to cp/m-86 or on the commodore 128
-Ken Mauro.
Alan Jones
wrote:
>I haven't heard a peep out of Len since about 1988, have you? I had fairly
>frequent contact with him when the "COMAL Today" newsletter was being published.
I never did have much contact with Len, other than being a Comal Today
subscriber and submitting a few articles. I did try to contact him
once after CT ended, but I don't think I got a peep. Last I heard, he
was supporting IBM mainframes.
>Yes, I do probably have just about everything imported to the USA that Len
>carried, and kick myself that I didn't get a COMAL 128 cartridge. The cost (over
>$200 at the time) was a bit hard to justify,
There are many things that I did not get. I always wanted to get the
Ross Technical disk, but I never got around to it. There were also a
lot of other user group disks that I did not get. I think CT actualy
ended before I picked up my first 128. The 128 cartridge also had
some incompatabilities with the C64 cartridge, like packages. The
SuperChiip 128 package game the 64 cart almost all of the 128
features, except for the additional memory. So I can understand why
nobody bouth the $200 128 cartridge.
> especially since I had the Super
>COMAL cartridge 2.10 that allowed using the 128's 80-col video mode. <g>
I though all the C64 cartridges were called 2.0 (or 2.01), and 2.10
might have been used for the CP/M version.
>I'm glad to see some interest in COMAL again, and will see what I can do in the
>next few weeks for getting either the "Common COMAL Reference" or the CP/M
>COMAL-80 manuals scanned into readable format. I truly don't think Len would
>mind, and he might even be a bit gratified that there is interest again like *I*
>am! <g>
That would be nice. Agreed, but I think we owe Len the curtesy of
asking first.
>Cheers,
>Phil Heberer
I doubt that there will much of a resurgence of interest in Comal.
However, the CP/M version may be the best for the masses.
Someone suggested that Visual Basic was essentialy a rip off of Comal.
I'm not familiar with Visual Basic at all, but that would be an
interesting legasy.
Alan Jones
@robase, Salle multimédia
Please thank Phil Heberer for his answer and encourage him to make available
online at the Retroarchive Web site a workable version of COMAL-80 and a few
doc.
Yours Sincerely,
"French Lurker"
Alan Jones
Yes indeed. Thanks Phil for your reposnse, interest in COMAL. and
any further support that you provide.
Alan Jones
Phil Heberer
> I never did have much contact with Len, other than being a Comal Today
> subscriber and submitting a few articles. I did try to contact him
> once after CT ended, but I don't think I got a peep. Last I heard, he
> was supporting IBM mainframes.
I thought he was working with desktops, but don't really know. I wasn't a
friend, but had frequent contact because of a user group COMAL SIG that I was
in.
> >Yes, I do probably have just about everything imported to the USA that Len
> >carried, and kick myself that I didn't get a COMAL 128 cartridge. The cost (over
> >$200 at the time) was a bit hard to justify,
>
> There are many things that I did not get. I always wanted to get the
> Ross Technical disk, but I never got around to it. There were also a
I don't remember that, and don't see anything about it on a Jun 87 COMAL order
form. I did get both the Pages Library Vol I that David Stidolph did, and
Packages 2.0 Library done by Jesse Knight.
> lot of other user group disks that I did not get. I think CT actualy
> ended before I picked up my first 128. The 128 cartridge also had
> some incompatabilities with the C64 cartridge, like packages. The
> SuperChiip 128 package game the 64 cart almost all of the 128
> features, except for the additional memory. So I can understand why
> nobody bouth the $200 128 cartridge.
I think I have all the issues of of the DT disks, but they were condensed onto
about ten 1581 disks, with duplicate stuff being left out.
> > especially since I had the Super
> >COMAL cartridge 2.10 that allowed using the 128's 80-col video mode. <g>
>
> I though all the C64 cartridges were called 2.0 (or 2.01), and 2.10
> might have been used for the CP/M version.
I sit corrected, and you may be right. The only difference I see on the Super
chip cartridge is that it's black, and has a sticker on it with a date of 1986.
It also has an empty ROM socket inside, and just a booklet with the Super Chip
commands. I think the V2.10 was indeed the CP/M version (which I'm still looking
for, BTW, but getting it narrowed down to about one of two more disk boxes to
look through.)
> >I'm glad to see some interest in COMAL again, and will see what I can do in the
> >next few weeks for getting either the "Common COMAL Reference" or the CP/M
> >COMAL-80 manuals scanned into readable format. I truly don't think Len would
> >mind, and he might even be a bit gratified that there is interest again like *I*
> >am! <g>
>
> That would be nice. Agreed, but I think we owe Len the curtesy of
> asking first.
I'd be more than happy to ask first if I were able to find him. I've tried
several of the internet locators, but he doesn't appear to be in Wisconsin any
longer. I will make a concerted effort to get permission, but will take full
responsibility if it can't be given.
> I doubt that there will much of a resurgence of interest in Comal.
> However, the CP/M version may be the best for the masses.
I'm afraid I'm a bit of a snob, in that I *like* the 80-col and color
capabilities of the 128 over the C-64. Steve Goldsmith wrote some utilities for
Hi-Tech's ANSI C CP/M compiler that allows access to the Commodore SID chip and
the VIC-II chip. Some of his demos are pretty neat, and I would have to say the
Commodore 128 may well be one of the more capable CP/M systems as far as sound
and bit-mapped color graphics go! <grin> I also have the CP/M COMAL Runtime
package, so standalone CP/M programs could be written in COMAL.
> Someone suggested that Visual Basic was essentialy a rip off of Comal.
> I'm not familiar with Visual Basic at all, but that would be an
> interesting legasy.
Too bad CP/M didn't win the bid for the O/S of choice on the early IBM systems.
I've just recently been taking some VB6 instruction, and it is indeed VERY much
like COMAL! As an intro to more modern structured programming, COMAL certainly
has it hands down over the old BASIC! <grin>
Cheers,
Phil
Phil Heberer
"@robase, Salle multimédia" wrote:
> Please thank Phil Heberer for his answer and encourage him to make available
> online at the Retroarchive Web site a workable version of COMAL-80 and a few
> doc.
Don't thank me yet! <grin> I'm still digging for my CP/M COMAL disk, but have it
narrowed down to a couple more disk cases I haven't looked through yet. I've
gotten a little side-tracked with old, interesting stuff I run into along the
way! LOL! Part of the curse of being a pack-rat, and a computer enthusiast for
nearly 30 years now (how about class notes from a COBOL class I took back in
1971? ;) )
I'm also trying to make an effort to find Len Lindsay (*THE* driving force for
COMAL in the U.S.). I've had no luck finding him in Wisconsin (his last know
address), so will expand my search with WhosWhere and PeopleFinder (along with
others). If I can locate him, great, but if not, I will assume the responsiblity
for transfering the COMAL references to electronic format and posting it.
Cheers,
Phil Heberer
Alan Jones
wrote:
>I thought he was working with desktops, but don't really know. I wasn't a
>friend, but had frequent contact because of a user group COMAL SIG that I was
>in.
I don't have any idea how to track down Len.
I started out in a COMAL SIG and got copies of the early CT
newsletters and disks. I later moved and subsribed directly. My
subscrition number was in the 2600s, so thats about how many
subscribers he had to work with.
>I sit corrected, and you may be right. The only difference I see on the Super
>chip cartridge is that it's black, and has a sticker on it with a date of 1986.
>It also has an empty ROM socket inside, and just a booklet with the Super Chip
>commands.
They were all COMAL 2.0. The earliest "grey" catridge was produced in
the US under licence and had four sockets holding 4 16K EPROMS. I
bought that cartridge. Later the imported "black" cartridge was
available with three sockets holding two 32K EPROMS. The 16K
superchip EPROM is inserted into the empty socket. The "grey"
cartridge can also be modified to use up to 4 32K EPROMS. I did this
mod and was able to install the superchip (although I had to copy it
into half of a 32K EPROM). Most of the superchip software was also
available disk loaded, but it eats up available RAM. The last
catridge produced had only one 64K EPROM (or ROM?) soldered directly
to the board with no socket. I think of that one as the CR, Cost
Reduced version.
>> I doubt that there will much of a resurgence of interest in Comal.
>> However, the CP/M version may be the best for the masses.
>
>I'm afraid I'm a bit of a snob, in that I *like* the 80-col and color
>capabilities of the 128 over the C-64. Steve Goldsmith wrote some utilities for
>Hi-Tech's ANSI C CP/M compiler that allows access to the Commodore SID chip and
>the VIC-II chip. Some of his demos are pretty neat, and I would have to say the
>Commodore 128 may well be one of the more capable CP/M systems as far as sound
>and bit-mapped color graphics go! <grin> I also have the CP/M COMAL Runtime
>package, so standalone CP/M programs could be written in COMAL.
I didn't get my first 128 untill '90 or '91. I never really got into
CP/M, other than to see that it works, and to run some utilies that
were not yet available for the C64/128 in native mode. For a time I
was unzipping Pkzip 2.0 archives in CP/M and transfering files with
BBR. But eventualy we got C64 software to do that, and I had
accidentaly formatted my BBR disk. I did get and look at Hi-Tech
ANSI C and even MS Fortran, but I guess they were just too old and
incomplete for me. Perhaps if I had all the 128 specific pieces and a
bit of support, I would have used it. I've never heard anyone extoll
ther virtues of the 128 sound and graphics under CP/M before. Usualy
they just complain about how slow it is.
I did get a CP/M COMAL disk. I think I ran it once, just to if it
would work. For a 128 user, I think the COMAL 2.0 cartridge in native
mode would be the best, followed by the CP/M version, and lastly, the
native diskloaded version (Power Driver or 0.14). Of course cartriges
are difficult to find or replicate, so the CP/M version is attractive.
Still, CP/M has many more good programming languages available than
for native mode C64/128. Can you say the CP/M COMAL is really better
than all the other languages available under CP/M?
>> Someone suggested that Visual Basic was essentialy a rip off of Comal.
>> I'm not familiar with Visual Basic at all, but that would be an
>> interesting legasy.
>
>Too bad CP/M didn't win the bid for the O/S of choice on the early IBM systems.
Probably so. That old IBM\CP/M\Bill Gates story is amazing.
>I've just recently been taking some VB6 instruction, and it is indeed VERY much
>like COMAL! As an intro to more modern structured programming, COMAL certainly
>has it hands down over the old BASIC! <grin>
I wonder if COMAL wouold have caught on better if it had been called
BASIC. Can you recommend an URL for a good VB overview?
>Cheers,
>Phil
I don't have a scanner, and I'm not looking to do a lot of work, but
I'd be happy to help you fill in a few missing pieces, or what ever
else I can do.
Cheers,
Alan
Phil Heberer
> I don't have any idea how to track down Len.
I've done some web-wide searches for him, and was rather surprised I didn't get
that many hits. Of all the about dozen or so people finder sites on the web,
I've only managed to find 4 e-mail addresses for a 'Len Lindsay' (though lots
for Lena Lindsay!) I sent inquiries to all the addresses I did find, and have
had only one reply so far, but just to tell me he wasn't the one I was looking
for. :( As active as Len was in computers, he would surely have an e-mail
address, but it might not necessarily be in any of the e-mail locators.
> I started out in a COMAL SIG and got copies of the early CT
> newsletters and disks. I later moved and subsribed directly. My
> subscrition number was in the 2600s, so thats about how many
> subscribers he had to work with.
I was just looking for a label or receipt or something, but don't know what my
subscriber number was. I was a subscriber since issue #1 anyway, and have every
issue published.
During my search for Len, I found an old article by you
(http://www.macharsoft.demon.co.uk/forum/ajones.html) describing your
association with COMAL. <g>
> They were all COMAL 2.0. The earliest "grey" catridge was produced in
> the US under licence and had four sockets holding 4 16K EPROMS. I
> bought that cartridge. Later the imported "black" cartridge was
> available with three sockets holding two 32K EPROMS. The 16K
> superchip EPROM is inserted into the empty socket. The "grey"
> cartridge can also be modified to use up to 4 32K EPROMS. I did this
> mod and was able to install the superchip (although I had to copy it
> into half of a 32K EPROM). Most of the superchip software was also
> available disk loaded, but it eats up available RAM. The last
> catridge produced had only one 64K EPROM (or ROM?) soldered directly
> to the board with no socket. I think of that one as the CR, Cost
> Reduced version.
Duh! (slapping forehead) I guess you are right about the SuperChip being in the
empty socket. I didn't actually open it, but was looking at some info on the
cartridge when it mentioned the empty socket.
> accidentaly formatted my BBR disk. I did get and look at Hi-Tech
> ANSI C and even MS Fortran, but I guess they were just too old and
> incomplete for me. Perhaps if I had all the 128 specific pieces and a
> bit of support, I would have used it. I've never heard anyone extoll
> ther virtues of the 128 sound and graphics under CP/M before. Usualy
> they just complain about how slow it is.
I could understand the slowness if running from a 1541 drive (or even the 1571
for that matter!). I have a 512K REU, and running CP/M out of the RAMdisk wasn't
bad at all. Even on a 1581 it isn't all THAT slow (compared to other systems of
the era).
> I did get a CP/M COMAL disk. I think I ran it once, just to if it
> would work. For a 128 user, I think the COMAL 2.0 cartridge in native
> mode would be the best, followed by the CP/M version, and lastly, the
> native diskloaded version (Power Driver or 0.14). Of course cartriges
> are difficult to find or replicate, so the CP/M version is attractive.
> Still, CP/M has many more good programming languages available than
> for native mode C64/128. Can you say the CP/M COMAL is really better
> than all the other languages available under CP/M?
For the Commodore, I think CP/M COMAL would probably be the easiest to learn,
and the runtime module is a plus for designing stand-alone CP/M programs. I'm
not really much of a programmer any longer (I took classes in COBOL, Fortran IV,
and PL-1, but that was about 30 years ago!) Not having looked at other CP/M
programming languages, I can't really judge them for other platforms.
> Probably so. That old IBM\CP/M\Bill Gates story is amazing.
For whatever your feelings about Bill Gates, he was certainly a gutsy guy
willing to take a risk, and it paid off BIG time!
> I wonder if COMAL wouold have caught on better if it had been called
> BASIC. Can you recommend an URL for a good VB overview?
You can try the VB home page at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/ All the
documentation is available for VB on-line from there also.
> I don't have a scanner, and I'm not looking to do a lot of work, but
> I'd be happy to help you fill in a few missing pieces, or what ever
> else I can do.
I appreciate that, Alan, but I think I've got it in hand now. I hope to start
scanning the docs tomorrow, but I need to finish up my 1040 and get it off to
Uncle Sam first (UGH!)
BTW, the article I mentioned above credits you as being from Iowa. I grew up in
a smallish Iowa town called Oskaloosa. Did you by chance attend school at either
Ames or Iowa City? Just curious.
Cheers,
Phil
Alan Jones
wrote:
>BTW, the article I mentioned above credits you as being from Iowa. I grew up in
>a smallish Iowa town called Oskaloosa. Did you by chance attend school at either
>Ames or Iowa City? Just curious.
>
>Cheers,
>Phil
I've been to Oscaloosa several times. I grew up in and around
Davenport, Iowa. I did graduate from ISU, twice. However, I was
living in St. Louis when I started using COMAL. I currently live in
Iowa City.
Alan Jones
Ray McMillan
> On Tue, 13 Mar 2001 15:36:57 +0100, "arobase, Salle multimédia"
> <arobase1....@wanadoo.fr> wrote:
> >Regarding the demo version of COMAL that I found on a
> >commercial Web site in Scotland: I have finally found how
> >to test it on an IBM Clown, using 22NICE.
> >
> >Among the CP/M computer that the INSTALL program
> >recognizes is KAYPRO, which was a best-seller in the USA.
> >Yours Sincerely,
> >"French Lurker"
> I was a C64/128 COMAL 2.0 user. I have both the CP/M COMAL demo and
> full versions (I'm not sure where, I never used it.) On the C64/128
> the CP/M version was only of interest because it was chaper than the
> COMAL 2.0 cartridge. A major feature of COMAL 2.0 is ML packages,
> particularly when placed in EPROM, and this is one of incompatabilites
> bewteen the two versions. Also, the C128 was not an ideal CP/M
> computer. I don't think COMAL was ever popular on CP/M.
> There are native COMAL impleminations for IBM PCs. I don't have any
> of them. I know there are C64 and CP/M emulators for IBM PCs, but I
> have not tried them. (Too little time.) However, I do have some
> interest and I want to encourage you to evalute them and share your
> results here.
> I have an extra copy of Len Lindsay's The Comal Handbook, Second
> Edition. However, you probably want the later loose leaf Common COMAL
> Reference, which I also have. I also have all of the COMAL Today
> nesletters and disks. I'm not inclined to part with any of it. In
> fact, if I could get some more copies of the Handbook, I would try to
> teach an informal COMAL course. I think Len still holds the copywrite
> for these materials, so you would to get permission to reproduce them.
> Alan Jones
Hello all. Alan Jones.......are you still here?
David Snowdon
https://archive.org/details/comal-collection
David
---
> Hello all. Alan Jones.......are you still here?
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