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Z AT Last! Z AT Last! Thank Cran And Others! Z AT Last! (A Primer On Using Z-System Software On AT-Class Machines Under MYZ80) Copyright (C) 1992 By Lee Bradley 0. In The Beginning .. On August 1, 1992, Simeon Cran brought forth MYZ80100.ZIP, a 58k package which lets AT-class machines run Z80-class software. Not only does Cran's emulator run CP/M programs, but it also runs Z-System programs. As CP/M machines die and IBM machines get produced, this development comes as exciting news to those who have remained active in the 8-bit community. Few AT-class machine owners are aware of the advancements that have taken place in 8-bit operating systems over the last ten years. Now that these advancements are available to them, I think a short article which talks about how to get the software and how to use it, has a place. 1. What You Need And How To Get It As of this writing (August 21, 1992,) the first thing you need is the file MYZ80100.ZIP. You may send for it directly by writing the author. MYZ80 is user-supported software and Simeon Cran will send you the latest version of his emulator and listen to your questions. The registration fee is $30 Australian ($23.50 US) and the address is: MYZ80 Registration, Software by Simeon 2 Maytone Ave, Killara N.S.W. AUSTRALIA 2071 MYZ80100.ZIP is available for download from electronic bulletin boards. I run such a board in Connecticut, Z-Node #12, (203) 665-1100. If you don't care or are not equipped to download, a 720k 3.5" disk with MYZ80100.ZIP *plus* the 20 or so files discussed below may be obtained by sending a $10 check to: Small Computer Support, 24 East Cedar Street, Newington, CT 06111 I strongly encourage you to register your copy with the author. The second thing you need is the NZCOM package, an automatic, dynamic, universal Z-System, a CP/M 2.2 compatible operating system. To order it, send a check for $49 plus $3 S&H to: Sage Microsystems East, 1435 Centre Street, Newton Centre, MA 02159-2469 2. Getting Started With MYZ80 Since MYZ80 is provided in .ZIP form, you'll need to unZIP it. For this you'll need PKUNZIP.EXE. Place the disk with MYZ80100.ZIP in your drive and copy it to a subdirectory of your hard disk. Say you've created a subdirectory via C:\> md myz80 Then, copy the .ZIP file to this subdirectory via C:\> copy a:myz80100.zip \myz80 Next, change directories and unZIP the file via C:\> cd myz80 C:\MYZ80> pkunzip myz80100 At this point, you should have 6 or so files in the subdirectory. One of them is CPM.EXE. Run it via C:\MYZ80> cpm If you are running an unregistered copy of the software, you will be presented with several screens of information. By hitting return you will eventually get the "A prompt." A0> Type DIR at this prompt to get a directory of the files on the "A disk." A0> dir Among the files, the following will appear: DOSDIR.COM, EXPORT.COM, IMPORT.COM and QUIT.COM. There will be others, but the four listed above are the most important ones. DOSDIR lets you get a directory of the subdirectory from which you invoked the emulator. A0> dosdir should show you something like the following: myz80100.zip|cpm.exe |a.dsk |boot.cpm myz80.doc |read.1st | | IMPORT lets you copy files from the hard disk to your "A disk." EXPORT goes the other way. QUIT gets you out of the emulator and back to MSDOS (or DRDOS etc.) The file named A.DSK holds the files you see when you issue the CP/M DIR command. As you IMPORT, this file grows in size. MYZ80 supports three 8 megabyte "partitions," "drives A, B and C," and a RAM disk, "drive D." You log into these drives as follows: A0> b: B0> c: C0> You may also log into drive A, "user area 1," via the CP/M USER resident command: C0> user 1 C1> a: A1> Simeon put files in user area 0 and user area 1 of drive A. A1> dir should show you a few files. One of them is MYZ80.Z3T. This file is a "terminal capabilities" segment and will be used to provide hilighting, clear screen, cursor positioning etc. functions when we bring up Z-System. 3. Getting Started With Z-System The key files you need to get Z-System going are MKZCM.COM, NZCOM.LBR and NZCOM.COM. These files of course are part of the NZCOM package mentioned above. NZCOM (ie. Z-System for CP/M 2.2 computers) may be purchased from Sage Microsystems East (address above.) Copy these files from your distribution disk to the MYZ80 subdirectory. If you are running the emulator, leave it and get back to MSDOS (DRDOS etc.) via A0> quit C:\MYZ80> Now, do the copy. C:\MYZ80> copy a:mkzcm.com C:\MYZ80> copy a:nzcom.lbr C:\MYZ80> copy a:nzcom.com Next, run the emulator and bring these files into your "A disk" with IMPORT. C:\MYZ80> cpm A0> import mkzcm.com A0> import nzcom.lbr A0> import nzcom.com Next, run MKZCM, which allows you to define which "system segments" you want and how big they are going to be. A0> mkzcm The "system segment" called the "resident command processor" defaults to one which is 16 records (2k) big. Since the stock "resident command processor" in NZCOM.LBR is 18 records long, select option 5 from the MKZCM menu and then enter 18 for the new size. To save the results, type S and when asked what name to use for the "environment" files which will get created, type NZCOM. Do not be concerned at this point about exactly what is going on. MKZCM provides many choices. Our objective here is to get you up and running, not to explain the details and possibilities. Run NZCOM (the Z-System segment loader) by typing: A0> nzcom You will see a series of messages as NZCOM accesses NZCOM.LBR and loads segments into the Z-System environment. The last thing you should see is actually an error message, namely STARTZCM? followed by a new "A prompt" A0:COMMANDS> 4. Bringing Up The Key Z-System Tools To take full advantage of this new operating system environment, you'll need some basic tools. As we discuss each recommended tool, the power and flexibility of Z-System will become apparent. The files that come to mind *first* are: 1. MYZ80.Z3T - a terminal capabilities file 2. SALIAS.COM - a screen-oriented "real" alias editor 3. ARUNZ.COM - an extended command processor 4. ZDE.COM - a full screen text editor 5. ALIAS.CMD - ARUNZ alias definition file 6. EDITNDR.COM - a named directory segment editor 7. SAVENDR.COM - a named directory segment saver 8. PATH.COM - a command search path utility 9. NZBLITZ.COM - a Z-System image saver 10. IF.COM - a powerful conditional command processor 11. ZFILER.COM - a point and shoot file manager 12. ZFILER.CMD - ZFILER macro definition file 13. SDZ.COM - a sorted directory utility 14. HELP.COM - a help utility 15. CRLZH.COM - a compression tool 16. UCRLZH.COM - a decompression tool 17. LPUT.COM - a library building tool 18. LBREXT.COM - a library extraction tool 19. LT.COM - a library member typing tool 20. Z-FOR-AT.ART - this file To re-iterate, to make it easy for you to get started, both MYZ80100.ZIP and the 20 files listed above are available on a 720k 3.5" disk for $10 from Small Computer Support, 24 East Cedar Street, Newington, CT 06111 Z-System itself is of course not included and may be purchased from Sage Microsystems East at the address given above for $49 plus $3 S&H. Again, you are strongly encouraged to register your copy of MYZ80 by sending Simeon Cran $23.50 US at the address given above. The remainder of this document is a tutorial on the files listed above and on how they illustrate Z-System capabilities. If you know nothing about CP/M or Z-System, you should read what follows. If you are familiar with both, you might just want to skim the rest. Who knows, after reading all this, you may never want to use Microsoft Works or Microsoft Windows again! Personally, I'd reformat my 40 meg hard disk, bring up MYZ80, then Z-System and be up an running ... Why waste that valuable hard disk space on 16-bit software ; > 4.1 MYZ80.Z3T - A Terminal Capabilities File In "user area" 1 of "drive A" we find the terminal capabilities segment file MYZ80.Z3T. To activate this file, load it into the Z-System environment via A0:COMMANDS> nzcom 1:myz80.z3t [Note: I am putting a space between the prompt and the command to make this more readable. You should *not* use a space in front of your commands when you issue them. Doing so has a special meaning under Z-System and in the examples discussed here, we do not want this special meaning to be active. End of note.] To see one of the effects that this has, it's probably a good idea to bring the files mentioned above into the "A disk" by IMPORTing them. Do this now. A0:COMMANDS> import salias.com A0:COMMANDS> import arunz.com etc. A0:COMMANDS> import lbrext.com A0:COMMANDS> import lt.com [Note: You of course must have copied these files from your distribution disk to the MYZ80 subdirectory on your hard disk first. End of note.] If you now run the SDZ program, you should see certain areas of the display *hilighted*. Similary, ZFILER will show hilighting. A0:COMMANDS> sdz A0:COMMANDS> zfiler 4.2 SALIAS.COM - A Screen-oriented "real" alias editor The error message STARTZCM? mentioned above can be fixed by creating what's called (a "real") "alias" named STARTZCM.COM. Do this with SALIAS (pronounced "S-ALIAS".) A0:COMMANDS> salias startzcm Type in the following script: echo s%>ystem loaded. Exit "edit mode" by pressing ESC and save the result by pressing S. Quit SALIAS by typing X. When you brought up Z-System (by typing NZCOM,) several files got created. One of them is named NZCPM.COM. This is what you use to leave Z- System and return to CP/M. To see the effect of the existence of STARTZCM.COM, leave Z-System and then re-enter Z-System. A0:COMMAND> nzcpm A0> nzcom The message "System loaded." followed by the A0:COMMANDS> prompt should appear at the end of the load sequence now. SALIAS may be used to define any "alias" you want. Another simple example of an alias will be presented when we discuss IF.COM below. NZCOM is "hard-coded" to run the command STARTZCM after it does its segment loading. STARTZCM may be anything you want. We chose to define a simple "real" alias that emits a brief message. If you run SDZ at this point, the nice hilighting will no longer occur (because the "terminal capabilities segment" no longer contains the "fancy stuff" held in MYZ80.Z3T.) To further automate things, we could beef up the STARTZCM alias by adding a line to it. Re-execute SALIAS on STARTZCM, press ctrl-N to insert a line in front of the echo etc. etc. line and enter: nzcom 1:myz80.z3t echo s%>ystem loaded. Now, when you bring up Z-System from CP/M (by typing NZCOM,) you should get hilighting with SDZ, ZFILER etc. 4.3 ARUNZ.COM - An Extended Command Processor The first thing you should do with this file is rename it to CMDRUN.COM. CP/M, you may recall, has 6 built-in (resident) commands. They are DIR, ERA, REN, SAVE, USER and TYPE. If you try: A0:COMMANDS> ren cmdrun.com=arunz.com it will fail, because REN is not a resident command under Z-System (to list the resident commands available, type H (help) at the A0:COMMANDS prompt.) The "stock" resident command processor has ERA and TYPE and several others, but no REN. There are two ways to get around this problem. One way would be to leave Z-System and return to CP/M and use its REN command. A0:COMMANDS> nzcpm A0> ren cmdrun.com=arunz.com and then return to Z-System: A0> nzcom The other way is to run ZFILER, press the space bar til the file pointer is on ARUNZ.COM, then press R (to rename) and type in CMDRUN.COM. Exit ZFILER by pressing X. ARUNZ is what is known as an "extended command processor." A well- defined series of steps are taken by the command processor segment of Z- System as it tries to figure out how to resolve any command it's given at the "A prompt." If the command you enter is not one of the "resident" ones, or a "transient" one (a .COM file,) your command is fed to an "extended command processor" named CMDRUN.COM. In ARUNZ's case, the command is resolved by searching for it in a text file named ALIAS.CMD. Here is a simple illustration of an ARUNZ type "alias." Use the full- screen text editor ZDE to create the file ALIAS.CMD. A0:COMMANDS> zde alias.cmd Enter the following definition for the alias DIR. DIR sdz $* Save the file (ESC S) and quit the editor (ESC Q.) If you had typed A0:COMMANDS> dir before renaming ARUNZ.COM to CMDRUN.COM and running ZDE and creating the ALIAS.CMD file, Z-System would come back with the error DIR? Why? Because, the "stock" resident command processor doesn't include a DIR and there is no "transient" DIR.COM. But now that we have an extended command processor and a definition for an alias DIR, the effect of the command A0:COMMANDS> dir is the same as the effect of A0:COMMANDS> sdz The $* in the definition for the DIR alias means "the command tail," so A0:COMMANDS> dir *.com would resolve to A0:COMMANDS> sdz *.com ARUNZ is a mature command processor, supporting many powerful parameters. As this document is only a primer, only one other parameter ($1) will be discussed (when we talk about IF.COM.) Full documentation on ARUNZ is provided when you purchase Z-System. 4.4 ZDE - A Full-screen Text Editor ZDE (Z-System Display Editor) is the most popular full-screen text editor for CP/M. Its use has already been mentioned briefly above when we updated the file ALIAS.CMD. ZDE is very similar to WordStar. You may use the "WordStar diamond" to move the cursor around (ctrl-s, -d, -e, -x.) Online help is available via ESC H. It is good for under 40k files. Full documentation is available. 4.5 ALIAS.CMD - ARUNZ Alias Definition File We have touched on the role this text file plays already. More information on ARUNZ and example ALIAS.CMD scripts are provided when you buy Z-System. 4.6 EDITNDR.COM - A Named Directory Segment Editor When you bring up Z-System, two "drive/user areas" are automatically given suggestive *names*. Drive A user 0 is named COMMANDS and drive B user 0 is named WORK. To change directories, you may type the drive letter, then the user area number, then a colon (:) and finally the enter (return) key. Alternatively, if a name has been given to a drive/user area, you may type the name, the colon and the return key. A0:COMMANDS> WORK: B0:WORK> EDITNDR is a named directory segment editor. You may add, delete etc. named directories with it. For example, you might want to name Simeon's drive A user area 1, the one with MYZ80.Z3T in it. Although only one file has to do with terminal capabilities, let's name it TCAP. A0:COMMANDS> editndr At EDITNDR's prompt, enter A1:TCAP and then leave EDITNDR by typing X. If you now type A0:COMMANDS> tcap: you'll see A1:TCAP> To make this association permanent, you could use the utility SAVENDR to create the file SAVED.NDR and then add one more line to the STARTZCM alias described above. A0:COMMANDS> savendr A0:COMMANDS> salias startzcm Enter the new line shown below nzcom saved.ndr nzcom 1:myz80.z3t echo s%>ystem loaded. Named directories are a good idea because you no longer have to remember the drive/user they correspond to. Just the meaningful name *you* choose. You might for example want to call C0 PROJECTS and C1 DATABASE. 4.7 SAVENDR.COM - A Named Directory Segment Saver This program simply saves the currently defined named directory segment names into a file named SAVED.NDR. It may be loaded into memory with NZCOM. I envision A.DSK files created by one person and distributed to others. These .DSK files will have a *logical* structure which an included SAVED.NDR file will help reveal. 4.8 PATH.COM - A Command Search Path Utility Stock Z-System comes with a command search path of A0 $$ A0. $$ means "currently logged drive, currently logged user area." This path is searched to find .COM files. Say you are logged into drive B, user 2, and you type B2> zfiler Since ZFILER.COM is in drive A, user 0, the command will work. If ZFILER.COM had for some reason been moved to drive B user 0, the command above would fail. You may use the PATH utility to establish the search path you want. For example A0:COMMANDS> path c0 b0 $$ a0 If this path were active, and ZFILER.COM were in B0, the ZFILER command above would work. 4.9 NZBLITZ.COM - A Z-System Image Saver This utility will help speed up the transition from CP/M to Z-System. Instead of running NZCOM and waiting while all the segments get loaded, you may use NZBLITZ to save a complete image of a loaded Z-System into a .COM file. For example: A0:COMMANDS> nzblitz image A file named IMAGE.COM will get created. It will contain the named directory names, the terminal capabilites segment, the command search path etc. etc. If you leave Z-System and return to CP/M (or to MSDOS/DRDOS etc.,) you may quickly re-generate this Z-System environment via C:\MYZ80> cpm A0> image It might be noted that with this approach, no longer will the STARTZCM command be automatically run (this only happens when you go from CP/M to Z- System with NZCOM.) What our STARTZCM did is not needed anymore anyway since the segments this "real" alias loaded are saved in and reloaded by IMAGE.COM! NZBLITZ does have a nice feature you may want to use, however. If you invoke NZBLITZ as follows A0:COMMANDS> nzblitz image;echo s%>ystem created 08/21/92 then, when you go from CP/M to Z-System, via A0> image the message System created 08/21/92 will be displayed. 4.10 IF.COM - A Powerful Conditional Command Processor Z-System supports both a "resident command processor" and a "flow control command processor." Typical flow control commands are IF, ELSE and FI. These commands are typically used in aliases to support conditional command invocation. Here's a simple example. Say you defined the following ARUNZ (or "real") alias and called it MYTYPE: if exist $1;type $1;else;echo $1 %>doesn't exist;fi Z-System uses semi-colons (;'s) to separate commands in a multiple command line. Say the file MYZ80.DOC were in A0 and you were logged into A0 and you issued the command A0:COMMANDS> mytype myz80.doc The "stock" flow control processor supports an IF which only supports a few testable conditions (ERROR and NULL.) EXIST is not an included testable condition. The transient IF.COM, if available, will automatically load if the resident IF is insufficient. IF.COM supports a host of conditions, including EXIST. The command above would result in the typing out of MYZ80.DOC. Notice the role of the $1 argument. It gets replaced everywhere it occurs by the first argument in the command tail. To see the testable conditions IF.COM supports, you may invoke IF.COM directly and use the standard Z-System help tail, //, to request syntax and usage. A0:COMMANDS> if // 4.11 ZFILER.COM And 4.12 ZFILER.CMD A Point And Shoot File Manager and its macro definition file ZFILER is a powerful "point and shoot" file manager. With it, you may view, rename, delete, copy, etc. files. It has online help which may be seen by typing / in response to ZFILER's prompt. Typing / again will bring you back to the file name display. ZFILER is our first example of what is known as a "shell." What this means is that while using ZFILER, you may issue the command Z to temporarily suspend ZFILER and, at the new prompt ZFILER itself provides, issue *any* Z-System command. For example, you might want to run the ZDE editor on the file MYZ80.HLP. Just type Z, and at the new prompt, type ZDE MYZ80.HLP. After you have finished your edit session and quit the editor, you will see the message "Strike any key." Upon hitting any key, ZFILER will automatically get re-invoked and its file name display will appear. Thus, "shells" are programs that act as "front ends" to the user, allowing the user to temporarily leave, do something else, and then be brought back automatically. ZFILER has one more powerful feature worth briefly mentioning at this point. If a file named ZFILER.CMD is available, and it contains the following: 1! zde $p 2! echo 08/21/92 # 1. edit currently pointed at file 2. show version date then, if the file pointer is on the file MYZ80.HLP and you press the 1 key, the ZDE editor will automatically get run and you will be editing the file MYZ80.HLP! The structure and meaning of ZFILER.CMD files will not be discussed further here. Again, this information is well covered with the manual you get when you purchase Z-System. 4.13 SDZ.COM - A Sorted Directory Utility This is a sorted directory program. It has been mentioned above as something that could be used to make the command A0:COMMANDS> dir do something useful (via an ARUNZ alias.) SDZ has many options. Type SDZ // to see what they are. A0:COMMANDS> sdz *.hlp /da would display the names of all .HLP files on all drives and in all user areas. 4.14 HELP.COM - A Help Utility One of the nicest things about Z-System is the extensive help available. Help comes in many forms. We've mentioned using the // as a command tail several times now. This shows you syntax and usage. This information is hard-coded in the executable (.COM) file. Another form of help is found in external .HLP files. These files are most effectively browsed with the HELP utility, HELP.COM. An extremely simple .HLP file follows. Say the file Z-FOR-AT.HLP contained: Introduction What You Need And How To Get It : Introduction On August 1, 1992, ... blah blah blah : What You Need And How To Get It As of this writing ... blah blah blah At the prompt, type A0:COMMANDS> help z-for-at What you would see on your screen would be A. Introduction B. What You Need And How To Get It Selection: If you pressed A, the text starting with : Introduction would get displayed. If you pressed B, the text starting with : What You Need And How To Get It would get displayed. .HLP files can be much more complex (they may have a tree-like structure.) 4.15 CRLZH.COM And 4.16 UCRLZH.COM A Compression And A Decompression Tool To save disk space, these two programs are used to compress and uncompress files. When a file is LZH-compressed, a much smaller file with the same first name and a file type with a Y replacing the middle letter of the file's filetype is created. Other compression and packaging tools are available, but the tendency for CP/M material seems to be leaning toward LZH-compression followed by library packaging. See below for library tools. 4.17 LPUT.COM And 4.18 LBREXT.COM And 4.19 LT.COM A Library Building, A Library Extracting And A Library Typing Tool LPUT (Library PUT) is used to create and add members to library files (.LBR files.) NZCOM.LBR is a library file. Other packaging techniques are popular (.ZIP, .ARC etc.) but .LBR's are the most common CP/M packaging method. LBREXT is used to extract files from libraries. It supports options to "inspect" (ie. say yes or no to the extraction) and "decompress," and all popular compression methods, including the latest, LZH, are supported. Finally, LT, Library Typer, lets you view (type out) a member of a library, compressed or not. This concludes this Primer. I strongly encourage you to take advantage of both Cran's revolutionary new product (MYZ80) and the Z-System it lets you use on your AT-class (80286, 80386, 80486 etc.) computer. It is so exciting to me that CP/M, where "it" all started, has come full circle and is now usable in a much more powerful version (Z-System) on a much bigger and faster machine. Preliminary runs of benchmark programs show that programs run from slightly slower to much faster (depending on what AT- class computer you use.) There is a wealth of software available for Z80- based machines and with the MYZ80 breakthru, I predict development of new applications will increase.