Wow quite a note here and lots of great info! On Wednesday, October 7, 2020, Jim Anderson <jim.ander...@kpu.ca> wrote:
> > -----Original Message----- > > I also transferred some executables from my Kaypro to this machine and > > they work as well: > > - D.COM (A better directory lister) > > - SWEEP.COM (also known as New Sweep, file operations program) > > I would love to give these utilities a try, if you find somewhere to > upload them. > > > - Wordstar 3.3, which runs but as we discussed, will not fit on an 8x40 > > char screen, and being configured for the Kaypro, likes to write a *lot* > > of control characters to the screen. > > I put WordStar 3.3 on my M100 not long after getting it up and running, > and I've actually been using it for quite a bit of writing (sitting in > front of the TV, using a C.Itoh VT100-compatible amber CRT terminal as the > display while I wait for the MVT100 board), combining the wonderful feel of > the M100 keyboard and the familiarity of WordStar commands. I never used > WordStar back in the day, but I did use an editor in DOS (I think it was > called TED) that used WordStar control-key commands, so it feels like home. > > I downloaded it from http://www.classiccmp.org/ > cpmarchives/cpm/Software/rlee/M/MICROPRO/WORDSTAR/V3-3/8080/ which also > has WINSTALL.COM so you can configure it for a VT100 terminal (or > whatever terminal type you want). I also installed SPELSTAR which is > available there, too, but there doesn't seem to be a way to configure the > terminal emulation for SPELSTAR.OVR and I can't turn up documentation on > patch addresses for that file. It spews a weird mixture of VT100 escape > sequences and some sequences I'm not familiar with. (It also throws an > error about an invalid entry in the dictionary when spell checking more > than 50% of the files I tried it on, so...) > > Another option for fixing your WordStar copy is to change the Kaypro > terminal escape sequences to VT100 sequences right in WS.COM by patching > it (editing it with DDT). I found a nice document covering the patch > addresses of several different WordStar versions, but didn't keep at tab > open (just saved the text file) and I can't seem to find it again tonight > in spite of all my Googling efforts. I could email it to the list if more > than one person wants it. I did turn up other lists of patch addresses for > specific versions but none of them seemed to be as clean as this list. The > most verbose resource (which is also easy enough to find) is an old > WordStar document called WS-BIBLE.DOC which covers the patch addresses in > great detail, but the version I found needed to have the high bits stripped > as it's an actual WordStar document and (as many of you may already be > aware) modern word processors don't seem to have a WordStar import > mechanism for whatever reason... > > I don't know if this warrants a separate post or new thread or anything, > but I was going to mention something I found very helpful to organize the > enormous REXCPM disk space - user areas. This might be totally obvious to > everyone else, I don't know, but it was new to me since I'd never used CP/M > seriously before and had never had an opportunity to worry about organizing > large disparate collections of files on a single disk without > subdirectories. > > There are several fun caveats about user areas, one of which is that you > can't execute commands from another user area like you can from another > disk drive, so you get into a bit of a catch-22 starting out. I wanted to > put WordStar and my document files in their own user area (I actually have > user areas 0 through 3 in use for various different groupings of files now) > and so you at least need IMPORT.COM in that user area to bring files in > from your TPDD device. PIP has an option to copy files from another user > area, PIP IMPORT.COM=IMPORT.COM[G0] (where [G0] means 'get this file from > user area number 0'). That's great, except PIP.COM is not in the new > user area yet so you can't execute it. To get PIP.COM into a new user > area the CP/M manual has the following handy (?!?) solution (I'll save you > the trouble of calculating it and tell you that in the CP/M image for > REXCPM the NEXT value is 1E00 and the number 's' below is therefore 29 - > also note that at least in my PDF of the CP/M manual there is a typo or > possibly OCR error and G0 (gee zero) was erroneously written as GO (gee oh) > which frustrated me until I realized the mistake): > > ========== > Note: to copy files into another user area, PIP.COM must be located in > that user area. Use the > following procedure to make a copy of PIP.COM in another user area. > > USER 0 Log in user 0. > DDT PIP.COM (note PIP size s) Load PIP to memory. > G0 Return to CCP. > USER 3 Log in user 3. > SAVE s PIP.COM > > In this procedure, s is the integral number of memory pages, 256- byte > segments, occupied by > PIP. The number s can be determined when PIP.COM is loaded under DDT, by > referring to the > value under the NEXT display. If, for example, the next available address > is 1D00, then > PIP.COM requires 1C hexadecimal pages, or 1 times 16 + 12 = 28 pages, and > the value of s is 28 > in the subsequent save. Once PIP is copied in this manner, it can be > copied to another disk > belonging to the same user number through normal PIP transfers. > ========== > > The other major caveat I should point out is that CP/M puts you back in > user area 0 after executing almost any .COM file (except for STAT.COM, > weirdly), so you really need to remember this especially if you quit a > program and immediately set about trying to copy (or worse, delete) a file > without typing DIR first and realizing you're no longer in the right user > area. (Yes, I've learned this the hard way.) So on my system, I've got > WordStar in user area 3, and after quitting WordStar I need to type USER 3 > before I use EXPORT on the file I was just working on. (REALLY REALLY > looking forward to the MVT100 so I can do the BCR hack and stop having to > swap out cables and switch display devices to copy files in and out of my > M100...) > > Aside from having to constantly remember to switch to the user area I'm > using, and having to keep duplicates of the executables for at least PIP, > IMPORT and EXPORT in each user area, I find the benefit of not having a DIR > listing go on and on for several screens outweighs the inconvenience. On a > real CP/M machine (or my old Apple II), several megabytes of files would > have been spread across many floppies and this was never really a problem I > had in the past... > > Oh, and if you lose track of which user areas you put things in, use STAT > USR: to show you which user area numbers have files in them. You'll still > need to go into each one with USER 1 or USER 2 etc and then DIR to see > what's in them, though. There doesn't seem to be a way to list a directory > without logging to each user area individually (at least, not with the > built-in tools). > > > > > > > > jim >
