25 Feb
2010
25 Feb
'10
12:54 p.m.
Greetings;
I have a friend with an TRS80 Model III would is looking for some bootable
media w/TRSDOS and, possibly if available, CP/M. I'm not familiar with the
TRS80 line, and I don't own any, so I'm not in a position to help.
If anyone has such a machine and can create up some disks for a nominal
charge I would be very appreciative, replies probably should be off-list.
Many thanks.
- JP
25 Feb
25 Feb
1:46 p.m.
On Thu, 25 Feb 2010, JP Hindin wrote:
I have a friend with an TRS80 Model III would is
looking for some bootable
media w/TRSDOS and, possibly if available, CP/M. I'm not familiar with the
TRS80 line, and I don't own any, so I'm not in a position to help.
The TRS80 III, like the 1, had ROM in low memory. and therefore couldn't
run any form of "normal" CP/M. FMG, and a few others, produced a
relocated CP/M for model 1 and 3, but it never caught on, AT ALL.
When you see mention of a TRS80 Model 1 or 3 CP/M, it normally means that
the machine has a small but significant hardware mod to permit
switching the memory map around. (That included Omicron, Parasitic
Engineering (Howard Fullmer), Montezuma Micro, etc.)
There were also hardware mods for the Expansion Interface to run 8"
drives.
Q: What is the official standard format for 5.25" disks for CP/M?
Gary Kildall: 8" SSSD.
RS sold "TRS-DOS for Model 3" 1.0,? 1.1?, 1.2, and 1.3, which were ported
versions of Model 1 TRSDOS 2.x. DOSPLUS, NEWDOS, LDOS were also available
from third parties.
The Model 4 was very similar to the model 3, but had a CTRL key on the
keyboard, and directly supported a CP/M compatible memory map. Radio
Shack sold "CP/M PLUS" (CP/M 3.0) for it, as well as there being a number
of after market 2.x ports.
Eventually RS bought rights to LDOS, and released it as "TRSDOS 6.0" for
Model 3 and 4, and Randy Cook finally started getting royalties!
(The EARLIER history of TRSDOS and Randy Cook is much more interesting)
For your model 3, you need "TRSDOS for Model 3 V1.3", and either DOSLUS,
NEWDOS80, or LDOS.
1:53 p.m.
On 2/25/10, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
On Thu, 25 Feb 2010, JP Hindin wrote:
Is that available anywhere now? I ask because I have a Model 1 w/dual
external 3rd party drives and a Model III and I know more about CP/M
than I do about TRSDOS.
I have a friend with an TRS80 Model III would is
looking for some bootable
media w/TRSDOS and, possibly if available, CP/M...
The TRS80 III, like the 1, had ROM in low memory. and therefore couldn't
run any form of "normal" CP/M. FMG, and a few others, produced a
relocated CP/M for model 1 and 3, but it never caught on, AT ALL. When you see mention of a TRS80 Model 1 or 3 CP/M, it
normally means that
the machine has a small but significant hardware mod to permit
switching the memory map around. (That included Omicron, Parasitic
Engineering (Howard Fullmer), Montezuma Micro, etc.)
Is it a "difficult" mod? I.e., would it be worth rolling a modern one?
There were also hardware mods for the Expansion
Interface to run 8"
drives.
I'd guess those aren't too difficult to implement these days. I have
a TM848 in the basement (installed in a Dataram PDP-11-compatible
chassis) that might work nicely on that.
Q: What is the official standard format for 5.25"
disks for CP/M?
Gary Kildall: 8" SSSD.
Heh. I remember that quote when it was fresh.
The Model 4 was very similar to the model 3, but had a
CTRL key on the
keyboard, and directly supported a CP/M compatible memory map.
Interesting to know now. When I was in High School, we had one Model
III and one Model 4 (plus a Wang programmable calc) for the "computer
lab" (later, after I graduated, DEC donated/sold cheaply a room full
of Rainbows). At the time, we were using TRSDOS and I really didn't
see much difference between one computer vs the other.
-ethan
2:18 p.m.
> The TRS80 III, like the 1, had ROM in low memory.
and therefore couldn't
> run any form of "normal" CP/M. FMG, and a few others, produced a
> relocated CP/M for model 1 and 3, but it never caught on, AT ALL.
On Thu, 25 Feb 2010, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Is that available anywhere now? I ask because I have
a Model 1 w/dual
external 3rd party drives and a Model III and I know more about CP/M
than I do about TRSDOS.
I gave away my last handful of copies of it at VCF years ago. It was CP/M
1.4?
I don't think that it was any good for running any commercial CP/M
software.
When you see
mention of a TRS80 Model 1 or 3 CP/M, it normally means that
the machine has a small but significant hardware mod to permit
switching the memory map around. (That included Omicron, Parasitic
Engineering (Howard Fullmer), Montezuma Micro, etc.)
Is it a "difficult"
mod? I.e., would it be worth rolling a modern one? There were
also hardware mods for the Expansion Interface to run 8"
drives.
I'd guess those aren't too difficult to implement these days. I
have
a TM848 in the basement (installed in a Dataram PDP-11-compatible
chassis) that might work nicely on that. Q: What is the
official standard format for 5.25" disks for CP/M?
Gary Kildall: 8" SSSD.
Heh. I remember that quote when it was fresh. Interesting to know now. When I was in High School,
we had one Model
III and one Model 4 (plus a Wang programmable calc) for the "computer
lab" (later, after I graduated, DEC donated/sold cheaply a room full
of Rainbows). At the time, we were using TRSDOS and I really didn't
see much difference between one computer vs the other.
When running TRSDOS, they were virtually indistinguishable, unless you got
down deep enough into it to go after the additional RAM.
2:39 p.m.
On 2/25/10, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
OK.
It was a sandwich under the FDC, not to be confused with the Percom Data
Separator sandwich, nor the Percom Doubler sandwich.
I think my Model I expansion chassis has some form of density doubler
sandwich (and a serial port mod, too).
That would be why I never noticed the difference - for that "class", I
stuck to BASIC (I was doing assembly on my C-64 at home, but not at
school).
Thanks for the informative responses. I'll probably just stick with
some flavor of TRSDOS on the Tandy hardware and jump over to a Kaypro
or S-100 box for CP/M.
-ethan
On Thu, 25 Feb 2010, Ethan Dicks wrote:
So if I understand this right, you'd have to recompile any application
source specifically _for_ this environment?
Is that available anywhere now?
I gave away my last handful of copies of it at VCF years ago. It was CP/M
1.4?
I don't think that it was any good for running any commercial CP/M
software. Is it a
"difficult" mod? I.e., would it be worth rolling a modern one?
A sandwich board under the Z80, with a few chips. Could probably be done
simpler if you're willing to cut traces on the Model 1 board.
But, I do NOT know the details of them. There were also hardware mods for the Expansion
Interface to run 8"
drives.
I'd guess those aren't too difficult to implement these days.
Interesting to
know now. When I was in High School, we had one Model
III and one Model 4...
When running TRSDOS, they were virtually indistinguishable, unless you got
down deep enough into it to go after the additional RAM.
3:03 p.m.
On Thu, 25 Feb 2010, Ethan Dicks wrote:
For machine language on TRS80, look at TBUG, and Allen Gelder's
enhancements thereto.
For assembly, look at Roy Soltoff's assembler
For disk sector work, look at Superzap from NEWDOS80.
For disk viewing below the sector level, look at Roxton Baker's? TRAKCESS.
For disk format conversion, look at Mike Gingel's programs
For spreadsheets: VISICALC (avail from RS)
For wordprocessing, Michael Shrayer's ELECTRIC PENCIL and RS's SCRIPSIT
So if I understand this right, you'd have to
recompile any application
source specifically _for_ this environment?
that kinda takes away the benefits of CP/M
I think my Model I expansion chassis has some form of
density doubler
sandwich (and a serial port mod, too).
The serial port was an accessory board, not a mod, with its own dedicated
compartment and connectors.
There were, of course, numerous mods to the "RS232" ("stands for Radio
Shack 232"!) board to try to improve it's contact with it's connector.
There was also some misinformation before the serial port was released,
that that was a general purpose "expansion port for things such as S100
interface"
>
Interesting to know now. When I was in High School, we had one Model
That would be
why I never noticed the difference - for that "class", I
stuck to BASIC (I was doing assembly on my C-64 at home, but not at
school). Thanks for the informative responses. I'll
probably just stick with
some flavor of TRSDOS on the Tandy hardware and jump over to a Kaypro
or S-100 box for CP/M.
A good decision. But you should also try out the various premium TRSDOS
derivatives (NEWDOS80, LDOS, DOSPLUS), particularly since the model 3 and
4 FDC can NOT create a disk with the DAMs that model 1 TRSDOS (2.0 - 2.3)
is happy with, so all model 1 users should upgrade their OS.
3:20 p.m.
On Thu, 25 Feb 2010, Fred Cisin wrote:
For machine language on TRS80, look at TBUG, and Allen
Gelder's
enhancements thereto.
For assembly, look at Roy Soltoff's assembler
For disk sector work, look at Superzap from NEWDOS80.
For disk viewing below the sector level, look at Roxton Baker's? TRAKCESS.
For disk format conversion, look at Mike Gingel's programs
For spreadsheets: VISICALC (avail from RS)
For wordprocessing, Michael Shrayer's ELECTRIC PENCIL and RS's SCRIPSIT
Some recommemded books:
"Machine Language Disk I/O & Other Mysteries", by Michael J. Wagner.
"TRS-80 Model III Assembly Language", by Hubert S. Howe, Jr
"More TRS-80 Assembly Language Programming", by Bill Barden
"The Custom TRS-80 & Other Mysteries" by Dennis Bathory-Kitsz
Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us
Old Technology http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/
3:37 p.m.
On Thu, 25 Feb 2010, Mike Loewen wrote:
Some recommemded books:
"Machine Language Disk I/O & Other Mysteries", by Michael J. Wagner.
"TRS-80 Model III Assembly Language", by Hubert S. Howe, Jr
"More TRS-80 Assembly Language Programming", by Bill Barden
"The Custom TRS-80 & Other Mysteries" by Dennis Bathory-Kitsz
TRS80 Disk and other mysteries, by Harv Pennington (first one in series,
and describes the model 1 disk format (directory entries are lists of
block numbers and length, plus TWO passwords per entry, a hash table for
improving lookup speed, block map, and strange choices of data address
marks, etc.)
Barden also did a short (pamphlet?) on disk I/O and working with the FDC
and he put out several pocket reference cards
The Radio Shack "Service"? manuals were fairly good.
26 Feb
26 Feb
11:59 a.m.
For machine language on TRS80, look at TBUG, and Allen
Gelder's
enhancements thereto.
For assembly, look at Roy Soltoff's assembler
For disk sector work, look at Superzap from NEWDOS80.
I found Superutility (a self-booting disk on the M/M3, but I think it was
a normal TRS-DOS program on the M4) to be very useful for this sort of
thing. I still ahve my M4 sert up to run that. It will let you read/write
any disk that the disk controller is physcially capable of handling.
For disk viewing below the sector level, look at
Roxton Baker's? TRAKCESS.
For disk format conversion, look at Mike Gingel's programs
There was a program called TRScross (or something like that) to read/write
CP/M disks under TRS-DOS. Very useful...
And somewhere I have a program caleld BBCdisk to read/write BBC micro
(Acorn DFS) disks.
For spreadsheets: VISICALC (avail from RS)
For wordprocessing, Michael Shrayer's ELECTRIC PENCIL and RS's SCRIPSIT
There were also other programming langages available. Pascal-80 was wuite
nice (I don;t mean tiny pascal), and MMSforth. I think RS sold Microsoft
Fortran and Cobol.
-tony
12:42 p.m.
On Fri, 26 Feb 2010, Tony Duell wrote:
That's one of Mike Gingel's programs. Sorry that I couldn't remember the
name earlier.
Human RAM does have the "dynamic" aspect of fading away if not refreshed
periodically.
For disk
format conversion, look at Mike Gingel's programs
There was a program called
TRScross (or something like that) to read/write
CP/M disks under TRS-DOS. Very useful... There were also other programming langages available.
Pascal-80 was wuite
nice (I don;t mean tiny pascal), and MMSforth. I think RS sold Microsoft
Fortran and Cobol.
I don't know about COBOL, but I have reason to believe that at one time, I
had the first three retail copies of the FORTRAN.
1:11 p.m.
> I don't know about COBOL, but I have reason
to believe that at one
> time, I had the first three retail copies of the FORTRAN.
(Microsoft FORTRAN
for TRS80)
On Fri, 26 Feb 2010, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Micro Focus COBOL was available for CP/M 80, as well
as (ISTR) Ryan-
McFarland COBOL.
But, the TRS80 needed to be modified to run CP/M. I don't think that
either Micro-Focus nor Ryan McFarland would run on the FMG relocated
CP/M 1.4
'Course once you modified the machine for CP/M, then almost anything that
you could want was available.
11:19 a.m.
On 2/25/10, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
My suggestion (as somebody who grew up with the M1 and later the M3 and
M4) is that uou get a copy of LDOS and learn to use that. It's a much
nicer OS than CP/M. If you want to run CP/M there are, IMHO, nicer
machines to run it on (the Epson QX10 comes high up my list..), but LDOS
only runs on the TRS-80 and clones.
On Thu, 25 Feb 2010, JP Hindin wrote:
Is that available anywhere now? I ask because I have a Model 1 w/dual
external 3rd party drives and a Model III and I know more about CP/M
than I do about TRSDOS. I have a friend with an TRS80 Model III would is
looking for some bootable
media w/TRSDOS and, possibly if available, CP/M...
The TRS80 III, like the 1, had ROM in low memory. and therefore couldn't
run any form of "normal" CP/M. FMG, and a few others, produced a
relocated CP/M for model 1 and 3, but it never caught on, AT ALL. When you see mention of a TRS80 Model 1 or 3
CP/M, it normally means that
the machine has a small but significant hardware mod to permit
switching the memory map around. (That included Omicron, Parasitic
Engineering (Howard Fullmer), Montezuma Micro, etc.)
Is it a "difficult" mod? I.e., would it be worth rolling a modern one? There were also hardware mods for the Expansion
Interface to run 8"
drives.
I'd guess those aren't too difficult to implement these days. I have
a TM848 in the basement (installed in a Dataram PDP-11-compatible
chassis) that might work nicely on that.
25 Feb
25 Feb
2:05 p.m.
On Thu, 25 Feb 2010, Fred Cisin wrote:
On Thu, 25 Feb 2010, JP Hindin wrote:
<snip>
I have a friend with an TRS80 Model III would is
looking for some bootable
media w/TRSDOS and, possibly if available, CP/M. I'm not familiar with the
TRS80 line, and I don't own any, so I'm not in a position to help.
The TRS80 III, like the 1, had ROM in low memory. and therefore couldn't
run any form of "normal" CP/M. FMG, and a few others, produced a
relocated CP/M for model 1 and 3, but it never caught on, AT ALL. For your model 3, you need "TRSDOS for Model 3
V1.3", and either DOSLUS,
NEWDOS80, or LDOS.
Thank you, Fred. As I said, I'm pretty vague on the TRS80s - never had
one, but I appreciate the information.
So, I guess, is anyone able to provide bootable 5.25" media with any of
the above OS'? :)
Thanks;
- JP
26 Feb
26 Feb
5:25 a.m.
So, I guess, is anyone able to provide bootable
5.25" media with any of
the above OS'? :)
Have some TRS-80 Model III OS disks in the SystemDisk collection at:
www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.htm
Look for "Download software/images" near the end of the main page.
You will however have to make the disks yourself - the tools are all there.
Dave
--
dave09 (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Classic Computers: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/
11:08 a.m.
The Model 4 was very similar to the model 3, but had a
CTRL key on the
For suitable values of 'similar' :-). The case was much the same (apart
from the colour), the floppy drive controller, RS232
interface, power
supplies, and monitor PCB were the saem boards. So were the drives
(officially 35 cylinder, single sided, but most would do 40 cylinders).
The keyboard, as you say, was similar, but it had a few more keys (CTRL,
CAPS, and I think f1-f3) put in 'spare' positions in the keyboard matrix.
The processor board was totally different. The major changes were the
video system (which was hard-wired TTL on the M1 and M3, and used a 6845
on the M4 together with twice as much video RAM, thus allowing 80*24 text
raher than the 64*16 of the earlier machines) and the memory addressign
hardware (the M4 supported up to 128K of bank-switched RAM, the BASIC
ROMs could be mapped out as you said, thus allowing a pure RAM memory MAP
for CP/M, etc).. A minor change was the signle-bit sound output on the
M4. This was mildly crazy, actually, The sound connector (a 4 pin header)
carries +5V, ground, a decoded output strobe and one of the data lines.
The sound board cotnaisn a 74LS74 dual Dtype (only one half used as a
single-bit output port) and the speakekr driver. The crazy thing is that
right next ot that header on the processor board is a 74LS74 with only
one half used.. Why the other half wasn't used for the sound output is
beyond me.
Eventually RS bought rights to LDOS, and released it
as "TRSDOS 6.0" for
Model 3 and 4, and Randy Cook finally started getting royalties!
I thought TRS-DOS 6.0 was for the M4 only, and was essentially LDOS from
the very beginning. You can run M3 OSes on the M4, but you con't get
access to the extra feauters of that machine.
-tony
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