23 Sep
2007
23 Sep
'07
9:12 a.m.
Subject: Re: Unknows S-100 System
From: "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at verizon.net>
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2007 23:44:57 -0400
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
On Saturday 22 September 2007 19:35, Barry Watzman wrote:
What I wrote something similar I used the word "most" as I knew there was
some CP/M software that required z80. However from a business user
perspective most of the deireable and likely used software like word
preocessors, spreadsheets and databases 8080 was just fine save for
speed and the 8085 solved that. Also the 8085 was more of a bridge
than the ultimate application cpu.
Allison
All commercial software used 8080 instructions,
Well, no. Two that I know of that did require a z80 were Turbo Pascal and
Mix C.
-- 
24 Sep
24 Sep
4:43 a.m.
On 23 Sep 2007 at 9:12, Allison wrote:
> What I wrote something similar I used the word
"most" as I knew
there was
some CP/M software that required z80. However from a
business user
perspective most of the deireable and likely used software like word
preocessors, spreadsheets and databases 8080 was just fine save for
speed and the 8085 solved that. Also the 8085 was more of a bridge
than the ultimate application cpu.
We ran into a few vertical apps that required Z80--and I think one of
the better word processors (maybe a late Spellbinder?) required a
Z80. BASIC dialects were different enough back then (and today) that
an application written with a specific Z80 BASIC in mind would get
you into trouble with an 8085.
It wasn't enough to make us consider developing a Z80 card, since we
were marketing our own OS and applications anyway. But I'm certain
that the lack of a Z80 cost a few sales.
Cheers,
Chuck
3:06 p.m.
Chuck Guzis said:
On 23 Sep 2007 at 9:12, Allison wrote:
> What I wrote something similar I used the
word "most" as I knew
there was
> some CP/M software that required z80. However from a business user We ran into a few vertical apps that required Z80--and
I think one of
the better word processors (maybe a late Spellbinder?) required a
Z80. BASIC dialects were different enough back then (and today) that
an application written with a specific Z80 BASIC in mind would get
you into trouble with an 8085.
Although not strictly CP/M (however easily adapable to CP/M), 12k TDL
"Zapple" BASIC used even undocumented Z80 instructions, namely the ones
dealing with IXH/IXL/IYH/IYL index reg bytes quite a lot. Was very
surprising to me when I disassembled that interpreter long time ago, but
then, the Z80 is reasonably structured to infer the actual function from
the unknown op codes found.
--
Holger
25 Sep
25 Sep
2:17 p.m.
On Sunday 23 September 2007 09:12, Allison wrote:
Yup, but the word used there was "all". :-)
And then there was software that was good enough to test what it had, and go
Subject: Re:
Unknows S-100 System
From: "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at verizon.net>
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2007 23:44:57 -0400
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
On Saturday 22 September 2007 19:35, Barry Watzman wrote:
What I wrote something similar I used the word "most" as I knew there was
some CP/M software that required z80. However from a business user
perspective most of the deireable and likely used software like word
preocessors, spreadsheets and databases 8080 was just fine save for
speed and the 8085 solved that. Also the 8085 was more of a bridge
than the ultimate application cpu. All commercial software used 8080 instructions,
Well, no. Two that I know of that did require a z80 were Turbo Pascal
and Mix C.
-- from there...
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
3:53 p.m.
On 25 Sep 2007 at 14:17, Roy J. Tellason wrote:
And then there was software that was good enough to
test what it had, and go
from there...
Not having my regular development system Z80-equipped was one of the
things that kept me external to the ZCPR community. It's only within
the last decade or so that I've gone back and looked at what I
missed.
Cheers,
Chuck
4:11 p.m.
On Tue, 25 Sep 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 12:53:36 -0700
From: Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com>
Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: Unknows S-100 System
On 25 Sep 2007 at 14:17, Roy J. Tellason wrote:
ZCPR alone was a good reason to use the Z80, it made CPM tolerable.
Peter Wallace
And then there was software that was good enough
to test what it had, and go
from there...
Not having my regular development system Z80-equipped was one of the
things that kept me external to the ZCPR community. It's only within
the last decade or so that I've gone back and looked at what I
missed.
Cheers,
Chuck
7:15 p.m.
On Tuesday 25 September 2007 15:53, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 25 Sep 2007 at 14:17, Roy J. Tellason wrote:
I never did get into all that stuff while it was going on either, and a lot
of the stuff that was out there wasn't always applicable to me since my main
CP/M box was an Osborne Executive, which ran CP/M 3, rather than 2.2, and
that meant that some of the stuff that really tried to hack at things just
flat-out wouldn't work.
I eventually got a HD box to hook up to that system, although the 34MB Tulin
drive in it at the time had bearings that were so bad you didn't want to be
in the room with it when it was on. I stuck a ST225 in there and managed
somehow to hack the code enough to make that work, more or less. I never
did find out where I had to do anything with regard to write precomp, which
I'm guessing why I had lots and lots of trouble accessing the last few MB of
the drive, though with as small as most software was in those days, I
didn't really feel the pinch until I started collecting lots of _data_ rather
than software. Which I still do, to a large extent.
I'd love to have double-sided drives in the Exec, but never did get anywhere
with that. The few bits I had info on didn't look like they'd work with the
HD setup -- both involved replacing the CPM3.SYS file, so I never got there.
It'd also be neat if there were some way to have the system ROM (EPROM
actually) be able to specify a boot from the HD, but you had to boot a
floppy to get there.
I had lots of fun with it, though. Stuffed all sorts of utilities into a
600K+ COMMAND.LBR which the system would search when it couldn't find stuff
otherwise, never a noticeable delay there. Patched the crap out of my copy
of Wordstar, etc.
ZCPR looked to have some pretty nfity ideas. I don't completely agree with
how they went about implementing all of them, though, and maybe someday I'll
hack something together that uses their ideas and does it the way I want it
to. We'll see. :-)
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
And then there was software that was good enough
to test what it had,
and go from there...
Not having my regular development system Z80-equipped was one of the
things that kept me external to the ZCPR community. It's only within
the last decade or so that I've gone back and looked at what I
missed.
6127
days inactive
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days old
6 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
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ajp166＠bellatlantic.net -
cclist＠sydex.com -
holger.veit＠iais.fraunhofer.de -
pcw＠mesanet.com -
rtellason＠verizon.net