ftp.barnyard.co.uk/2015.02.ftp.barnyard.co.uk.tar/ftp.barnyard.co.uk/cpm/walnut-creek-CDROM/CPM/ZCPR33/S-Z/ZARTICLS.LBR/MINIWINI.RZU/MINIWINI.RVU

Text File | 2000-06-30 | 20KB | 348 lines

    THE Z-System OPERATING SYSTEM AND MINI WINNIE HARD DISK:
                  AN UNENDING SOURCE OF DELIGHT

by Rick Charnes, Nov. 1986

Published in Morrow Owners Review December 1986/January 1987

Copyright (c) 1986 by Rick Charnes

     In response to the special deals MOR has just made to
license copies of a 'bootable ZCPR3/Z-System disk' for Morrow
computers and for the Mini-Winnie hard disk, I would like to
share some of my own experiences with this dynamic duo in hopes
of conveying just a little bit of the extraordinary nature of
this new computing experience.

     For the last 4 months I have been using on my Morrow a
combination of a Mini-Winnie hard disk and Z-System, the
replacement operating system from Echelon, Inc. that is taking
the 8-bit world by storm.  Quite simply it has been the most
enjoyable and pleasurable experience I have had in my 2 1/2 years
of computing, and I would recommend without reservation this
combination for anyone who is interested in taking advantage of
the fullest power of our Morrow computers and in using the most
advanced operating environment available on our sturdy machines.
Its elegance, sophistication, flexibility, and the sheer number
of features makes anything else pale in comparison.

     About 6 months ago, I had an important decision to make.  I
was at a crossroads in my computing.  Initially attracted to
computing for its ability to help me with my writing, I was
beginning to use my MD-2 1/2 (pet phrase for a double-sided MD-2)
less and less as a tool and more as something enjoyable in
itself, something to experiment with, learn about, explore.
Starting with the extraordinary MexPlus modem program - the
commercial version of MEX - I got my feet wet and began doing
some easy and simple programming, writing beautiful and fancy
menu displays for myself and learning to master the amazing and
complex interfaces between a computer bulletin board and my own
computer.   Being practically a language in itself, MexPlus
affords the beginning programmer and modem aficionado the perfect
introduction to test his or her nettle in an interactive
environment.

     But all this had one side affect: after a typical heavy
session of making sure the proper parameter was correctly stored
to the right string variable, the number of floppy disks on which
resided all the auxiliary programs I was using started making my
desk look like the day after an amateur frisbee tournament.  I
was beginning to accumulate programs the way I used to collect
stamps when I was a kid, with one exception: my stamp albums were
expandable.

     All the MS-DOS propaganda was beginning to get to me, too.
As a radical at heart, I don't really buy the pro-CP/M argument
which says, "if you've got something that works, why change?"  I
was getting restless.  That argument is fine for folks for whom
application is more important than process, but I was fast moving
away from that world.  And my friend with an MS-DOS business was
hot on my heels to get me a IBM clone "cheap".

     Then I happened to read Ted Silveira's series of articles in
the Bay Area Computer Currents (available on FLOB) about an
operating system and environment called Z-System.  At first not
really understanding it fully, I was nevertheless extremely
intrigued.  I had heard of ZCPR3 (one component of a full Z-
System) before, but had always assumed it was for folks on a
higher technical plane than myself and furthermore, that it
needed to run on a hard disk.  But Ted explained that he had been
running it on his floppy-based MD3 for quite some time.

     I started looking around and investigating.  There is a
non-commercial version of ZCPR3 for Morrow computers travelling
through the bulletin board circuit.  Considering the amount of
courage it took me to install ZCPR1 on my system a year or more
ago (which turned out to be incredibly easy), I was initially
quite hesitant.  After a few false starts, however, I found
installation it to be not at all past my level of expertise and
soon found myself running ZCPR3 for most of my day-to-day
operations.

               WHAT IS ZCPR3?  WHY USE IT?

     'Z-System' is a full replacement operating system for CP/M
computers, complete with a new BDOS, called ZRDOS; whereas ZCPR3,
for 'Z80 Command Processor Replacement version 3', replaces only
your CP/M 'command processor', that part of your operating system
that deals with what you type in from your keyboard.  In any
case, when you're running it, all of your old CP/M software runs
fine, only better.

     I found the new things I could do with my new system most
exciting.  It opened up a whole world to me, one that a
blossoming but still new computer learner such as myself felt
extremely happy to be in.  The only other time I remember being
so excited computer-wise was when I first discovered the wild and
wonderful world of modeming.

     I should first say, though, that ZCPR3 is not for everyone.
Those who will enjoy it the most are those for whom the joy of
experimentation and learning is important.  Those who necessarily
spend most of their time within a single application or program
probably will not find it that useful.  If you're the kind of
person, like myself, for whom your computer is a wonderful,
magnificent toy (in the good sense!), ZCPR3 can promise you
rewards and magic the likes of which you've probably never before
even imagined.

     It's interesting for me now to look back and reflect on some
of the things that at first I found most enjoyable.  I remember
first seeing messages on bulletin boards about the miraculous
"poke and go" routine.  Suppose you use Wordstar or Newword
for different applications sometimes at right margin of 65,
sometimes 72; sometimes non-document mode, sometimes document;
sometimes single and sometimes double-spaced.  You're tired of
having to constantly change the setting within each document and
of course patching or installing completely separate versions is
too much of a drain on precious disk space.  Well, with "poke and
go" you make a tiny file that "pokes" the byte(s) of the program
where these various options are set, before the program runs.
Then the same file, in the blink of an eye, loads your text file
you've specified on the command line and runs Newword/Wordstar
newly poked and defaulted to the setting you want - all
automatically.  It's quite amazing to see.

     I also remember how ZCPR3 provided the most aesthetically
pleasing and elegant solution to a problem I'd been dealing with
for over a year.  I often had need to convert several files to
pure ASCII text from NewWord format, but the number of files I
would start out with varied.  I had an old SUBMIT file to do it,
set up for the maximum of 9 parameters entered on the command
line, but was tired of having to ^C abort when mine were through.
Computers are supposed to automate tasks, not make you sit there
and do it yourself!  Well, using a Z-System feature that allows
you to put commands of up to 200 characters total into a single
.COM file, I created a file called FILTMANY.COM.   With its
excellent 'flow control' ("if", "else", etc.) it 'senses single and sometimes double-spaced.  You're tired of
having to constantly change the setting within each document and
of cohing that
was so nice about it was its visual demonstration of its progress
as it gave me a blow-by-blow description, displaying each 'IF' or
'NO IF' as it was reached in a beautiful pattern across the
screen, moving on to the next, and finally resolving itself at
the bottom of my screen.  Boy, was that fun to watch!

     I ran ZCPR3 for about 3 months on my floppy-based MD3.  But
I was still engaged in the old debate: whether to stay with my
Morrow and the CP/M-compatible world or to join the MS-DOS crowd.
My experiences with ZCPR3 were having the effect of pushing me in
the direction of the former, but that money I had saved was
burning a hole in my pocket.  Visions of 640K RAM had the
impudence to remain dancing before my eyes.  I also had my eye on
a nice RAM disk from Westwind.  I was attracted to the idea of
fast and - having recently gone through an ordeal with noisy disk
drives that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy - quiet, computing.
But then again, ZCPR3/Z-System cannot run on WestWind products.
How devoted was I to my new operating system - would I sacrifice
the advantages of a RAM disk for it?  It seemed that if I talked
with 3 people I would get 5 different opinions of which way to
go, which option to choose.

     Then I heard about the Mini-Winnie hard disk, which is now
as I type receiving these words onto its commodious 20 megabyte
storage space.  The key to why this can run Z-System while other
hard disk systems can't is simple: other hard disk software locks
you into its own modified operating system, while this leaves you
with what you started: pure CP/M Digital Research 2.2, from which
you are then free to load Z-System or whatever CP/M-compatible
environment you choose.  At the present time Z-System can not be
run from CP/M 3.0 which is used by many Morrow hard disk
machines, though its creators are busy working on it.

     The Mini-Winnie ('Winnie' stands for 'Winchester', the
generic name for hard disks) is about the most inexpensive hard
disk one can stick on to a Morrow, and from the several reviews
I've read in addition to my own experience, the quality doesn't
seem to suffer a bit.  It appears to be a top-notch, well-made
product.  And it comes with one important extra, something that
is on the rare side in the computer field: customer telephone
service that just won't quit.  If you have any doubts about there
being friendly, courteous, decent and helpful people in the
computer world, the president of AC&E, Tony Nicotra will disabuse
you of any notions to the contrary.  After reading a positive
review of the Mini-Winnie in San Francisco's local computer
magazine, I wrote Tony a a rather long, 8- or 9-question letter
outlining some of my admittedly rather arcane but to me important
concerns.  When I received a phone call 3 days later at 10:00
p.m. Florida time from Mr. Nicotra, who took a full 45 minutes
with me to answer my questions and then some, the feeling started
growing in me that this was something I wanted to do.

     I had previouly not heard of the Mini-Winnie, as most of
their sales have previously been with other CP/M computers, but a
growing number of satisfied Morrow users are now owners of this
hard disk system, and Advanced Concepts is making special efforts
to be available to our community.

     The Mini-Winnie hooks up to your Z80 socket, so those whose
chips are socketed and not soldered to their circuit boards will
have an easier time.  It comes with everything necessary to run:
fan, power supply, cables, enclosure, interface card, software.
Installing it to your system is accomplished through a fairly
clear-cut, two-step process.  First you create a new
system/SYSGEN image with your own MOVCPM program.   This moves
your operating system down 2 or 3 K, enough space for the hard
disk software to do its thing.  Next you run the Mini-Winnie's
INSTALL program, which asks you 6 or 7 questions the responses to
which we Morrowites can mostly use the defaults.   It then links
to your just-created system image.  After an initial problem and
a phone call to Tony who ascertained that I had initially
reversed the connecting cable, I was up and running.  I would
heartily recommend this system to anyone looking for a hard disk
add-on to their Morrow, and for those wanting to run Z-System as
well it is an indispensible piece of hardware.

     For one like myself who spent a year and a half doing
nothing but using Newword to write text on a single-sided MD2,
the combination of these two has been a completely new experience
for me, one which continues to give me much pleasure each time I
use it.  The sheer number of things one can do and the
flexibility and ease with which one can do them can pour fresh
blood into even the most tired-of-CP/M-ers.

     Now that I have a hard disk, one of the really nice features
of Z-System and something I've now come to use daily is opened
up to me: its elegant and sophisticated menu system.  Based on a
demo menu available on BBSs, I have created my own personal
series of visually pleasing menus, complete with reverse video,
blinking prompts, and dim and normal text from which I can do
practically any task I frequently use, occasionally use, never
use, or can't even dream of ever using but like to have there for
the sheer fun of it --- simply by pressing a single keystroke.
Seeing on your screen displayed in front of you an attractive
menu of this sort that you have created for yourself through your
own programming sweat and blood and pleasure -- something that
looks as good or better than any professionally-written
commercial program that probably can't do half the things it does
-- is a very satisfying feeling.  I have had MS-DOS-using friends
over my house watching these menus in action who have exclaimed
that they wish they could do something like this.

     The key to this is one of Z-System's nicest features that I
alluded to briefly before, a 200-(that's TWO-HUNDRED!) character
'multiple command line buffer.'  In other words, in the 'source'
that your write for these menus you can put in a l-o-n-g series
of commands, whatever you like, up to about 2 1/2 screens worth,
along with the key 'identifier.'  Then when you're back in your
menu, you simply hit this key identifer (you don't even have to
hit <RETURN>), and away it goes.  You just sit back and file your
nails or, rather what I like to do, is watch.  But that's not
all.  Z-System's menus are different from menu programs (and
there are some) available for CP/M in that when the commands are
finished running you are then returned to the menu display!  It's
quite lovely to watch.  This is all made possible by another of
Z-System's features, the concept of 'shells'.  Running a 'shell'
simply means that you set yourself up so that after one program
is finished running you are returned to another.  Considering
that (1) there are 3 (three!) different menu programs in Z-
System, all optionally programmable by you and each for a
different purpose, (2) any program you specify, even a word
processing program, can be made into a shell, and (3) four shell
programs can be running simultaneously, you can see all the
possibilities one has available.

     I have paid special attention to and received special
enjoyment out of these menus as I have long thought that CP/M
always needed some "prettying up."  I have seen the beautiful
graphics and art work done on other operating systems, and I have
known my Qume 102A terminal and most Morrow terminals are capable
of much more along the lines of attractive displays than they are
usually given by application programs.  Through Z-System's 'ECHO'
command, which sends control codes and escape characters as well
as text directly to the console, I simply send my terminal's
codes for reverse video, blink, underline, dim, etc.   This
creates a friendly, personalized environment that adds a very
nice touch and for me fills in something that I have long thought
missing from most applications.

     Almost of your old CP/M programs can run without
modification on Z-System.  The bugaboo that has scared some
people away from ZCPR3/Z-System, the TPA that it does take from
you for its own needs seems to me to be greatly exaggerated.  The
programs I run daily - NewWord, Wordstar, dBASE II, and MexPlus
(which is much more memory-hungry than its public domain
counterpart) along with the myraids of CP/M utilities I've used
for years - all operate without any problems whatsoever.

     It is, of course, most enjoyable on a hard disk.  There are
over 100 utilities that run only on ZCPR3, and it's very nice to
have access to them.  On the other hand, I used ZCPR3 for 3
months before getting my Mini-Winnie, I know several people
personally in the Bay Area who do the same, and I know one of the
country's top ZCPR3 programmers operates from a floppy machine.
The lack of a hard disk shouldn't deter anyone.  For those who
are interested in the Mini-Winnie, MOR has negotiated a very
reasonable price with Advanced Concepts for bulk purchases.

     What does one get on the bootable Z-System disk that is not
available on the non-commercial ZCPR3?  Well, for one thing,
it's about 1000 times easier to install.  Basically, one moment
you're running CP/M; you put in the disk, hit the reset button,
sit back and watch an auto-execute file perform its magic for a
couple of minutes, and when it's finished you're running a new
operating system.  It's that simple.  Number two: remember, the
non-commercial version is ZCPR3 but not Z-System.  You have no
ZRDOS.  ZRDOS gives you the ability to log in new disks without
hitting CTL-C (something I've always envied MS-DOS for),
a feature called "public directories" which let you access
programs such as Wordsar that have overlays from any user area,
and a growing number of utilities that must have ZRDOS to run.
Most importantly, the non-commercial version is set up for a
floppy-based machine and is not configured for the new memory
addresses used when a hard disk is attached to the system, so if
you're connected to a hard disk, the bootable disk will be
indispensable.  Lastly, the Morrow bootable disk has space
allocated to something called Input/Output packages, programs
such as key-redefinition programs and print spoolers.  For those
wanting a minimum of hassle with installation and configuration,
the Morrow bootable disk will be an excellent choice.

     One additional aspect of Z-System bears mentioning.  It
causes me great sadness to say this, but all appearances point to
the fact that the CP/M public domain is coming to a slow but firm
resting point.  Most of what one now are minor revisions to
already-existing programs.  Having a sense that the operating
system one uses is a vital, dynamic and growing entity is an
important feeling for us computer users.  It helps you feel
connected to something present, something alive.  The bulletin
boards devoted to Z-System, called Z-Nodes, of which there is a
large national network, are bursting to the seams with activity.
It seems that many of the old CP/M programmers are taking
advantage of this new environment and writing in new ways.
Echelon, Inc. is also now engaged in developing a multi-tasking
Z-System, something that to my knowledge has never previously
been implemented on CP/M-compatible systems.

     A printed newsletter, Z-NEWS, is published bi-weekly,
keeping one abreast with the latest developments both in the
software and hardware worlds, that adds to the feeling, very
important to me, that one is part of a community.

     I would encourage anyone eager to enhance and modernize
their computing to try Z-System on the Mini-Winnie hard disk.
Z-System is a continuously evolving, ever-changing, organic
entity, one that is has given me much pleasure.  Its rewards are
tremendous, and promise to be so for many years to come.