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; Bringing Up The Key Z-System Tools To take full advantage of this new operating Press ^C To system environment, you'll need some basic tools. Exit HELP A. MYZ80.Z3T B. SALIAS.COM C. ARUNZ.COM D. ZDE.COM E. ALIAS.CMD F. NAME.COM G. SAVENDR.COM H. PATH.COM I. NZBLITZ.COM J. IF.COM K. ZFILER.COM K. ZFILER.CMD L. SDZ.COM M. HELP.COM N. CRUNCH.COM N. UNCRUNCH.COM O. LPUT.COM O. LBREXT.COM O. ZLT.COM P. ZERR.COM Q. Z-4-AT.HLP Q. TOOLS.HLP What follows 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 want to skim the rest. Who knows, after reading this, you may never want to use Microsoft Windows again! Personally, I'd reformat my hard disk, put the DOS hidden files on it, bring up MYZ80, then Z-System and be up and running. Why waste valuable hard disk space on 16-bit software ; > :A 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.] Now type A0:COMMANDS> cls Your screen should clear. CLS is one of the "resident commands" you loaded when you brought up Z-System. If you had tried CLS *before* loading the .Z3T file, it would have had no effect. The .Z3T file supports clear screen, clear to end of line, cursor positioning, hi/lo lighting and other terminal dependent functions. Let's bring the key tools we'll be using and discussing into the CP/M environment at this point with IMPORT. A0:COMMANDS> import salias.com A0:COMMANDS> import arunz.com etc. A0:COMMANDS> import lbrext.com A0:COMMANDS> import zlt.com [Note: For the commands above to work, copy these files from your distribution disk to the MYZ80 subdirectory on your hard disk first. End of note.] The hilighting effect of the .Z3T file can be seen by running SDZ. Similary, ZFILER will show hilighting. A0:COMMANDS> sdz A0:COMMANDS> zfiler [Note: IMPORT supports "wildcards" and full DOS path name prefixes. The above IMPORTs could be simplified to one command and the need to copy these files to the hard disk eliminated via: A0:COMMANDS> import a:*.com Also, NZCOM will automatically load system segment files found in A0: if they have a filename of NZCOM, so if a copy of MYZ80.Z3T were placed in A0 and named NZCOM.Z3T, when you bring up Z-System, after the segments in NZCOM.LBR are loaded, the .Z3T file will load, eliminating the need for the load from user area 1 of MYZ80.Z3T shown above. ZFILER could be used to do the copy and the rename. End of note.] :B SALIAS.COM - A Screen-Oriented Standalone "Alias" Editor The error message STARTZCM? mentioned elsewhere can be fixed by creating what's called (a standalone) "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 and then reenter Z-System via: A0:COMMANDS> 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 elsewhere. 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 standalone alias that emits a brief message. If you type CLS now, to clear the screen, or SDZ, to display a sorted file directory, the screen won't clear and 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. Reexecute SALIAS on STARTZCM, press ctrl-N to insert a line in front of the echo 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 see hilighting with SDZ, ZFILER etc. and CLS will work. [Note: Of course, if a copy of MYZ80.Z3T, named NZCOM.Z3T, were in A0:, as mentioned elsewhere, this extra line in the STARTZCM standalone alias would not be necessary, since NZCOM automatically loads segments with names starting with NZCOM. We show it here only to illustrate how SALIAS and STARTZCM may be used. End of note.] :C ARUNZ.COM - An Extended Command Processor The first thing you should do with this file is rename it to CMDRUN.COM. CP/M has 6 builtin (resident) commands. They are DIR, ERA, REN, SAVE, USER and TYPE. REN's command syntax is: A0> ren newname.typ=oldname.typ 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 (under IF.COM). Full documentation on ARUNZ is provided when you purchase Z-System. :D ZDE - A Full-Screen Text Editor ZDE (Z-System Display Editor) is the most popular full-screen text editor for CP/M. Its use is mentioned briefly elsewhere as the tool to use to update the ARUNZ alias definition 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. :E ALIAS.CMD - ARUNZ Alias Definition File We touch on the role this text file plays under ARUNZ.COM. More information on ARUNZ and example ALIAS.CMD scripts are provided when you buy Z-System. :F NAME.COM - A Drive/User Area Namer 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> NAME is a drive/user area namer. 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> name 1:tcap You may now type: A0:COMMANDS> tcap: and you'll see A1:TCAP> To make this association permanent, you could use the utility SAVENDR to create the file NZCOM.NDR. A0:COMMANDS> savendr nzcom Files saved by SAVENDR have a default filetype of .NDR. Since we chose the filename NZCOM, when we bring up Z-System from CP/M, this segment will automatically load, along with NZCOM.Z3T (discussed elsewhere). 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. :G SAVENDR.COM - A Named Directory Segment Saver This program simply saves the currently defined named directory segment names into a file named SAVED.NDR, if no command tail is given, or filename.NDR, if a filename is provided in the command tail. It's a good idea to use NZCOM as the filename, because NZCOM automatically loads segments with NZCOM filenames. I envision A.DSK files created by one person and distributed to others. These .DSK files will have a *logical* structure which an included .NDR file will help reveal. :H 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. :I 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 load, 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 be created. It will contain the named directory names, the terminal capabilites segment, the command search path etc. If you leave Z-System and return to MSDOS/DRDOS via QUIT), you may quickly regenerate this Z-System environment via: A0:COMMANDS> quit C:\MYZ80> cpm A0> image A0:COMMANDS> It might be noted that with this approach, STARTZCM will no longer be automatically run (this only happens when you go from CP/M to Z-System with NZCOM). 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 08/24/92 then, when you go from CP/M to Z-System, via A0> image the message System created 08/24/92 will be displayed. [Note: For those of you out there that will will accept nothing less than a "fully automatic" implementation, try this: MYZ80 is coded to automatically run a program named MYZ80GO.COM at startup. So, if the name you choose when you create your system image with NZBLITZ is MYZ80GO, then you can go directly from DOS to Z-System with one command! C:\MYZ80> cpm A0:COMMANDS> End of note.] :J 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 frequently used in aliases to support conditional command invocation. Here's a simple example. Say you defined the following ARUNZ (or standalone) alias and called it MYTYPE: if exist $1;type $1;else;echo $1 %>doesn't exist;fi Z-System uses semicolons (;'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, invoke IF using the standard Z-System help tail, //. A0:COMMANDS> if // :K ZFILER.COM And 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 its prompt. Typing / again will bring you back to the file name display. If you issue the command Z, ZFILER will provide a new prompt at which you may issue *any* Z-System command. For example, you might want to run the ZDE editor on the file TOOLS.HLP. Just type Z, and at the new prompt, type ZDE TOOLS.HLP. After you have finished your edit session and quit the editor, you will see the message "Strike Any Key --." Upon hitting a key, ZFILER's file name display will appear. ZFILER is a "front end" or "shell", a program which isolates a user from direct use of the operating system. ZFILER has a powerful feature worth mentioning at this point. If a file named ZFILER.CMD is available, and it contains the following: 1! zde $p 2! echo 08/24/92 # 1. edit currently pointed at file 2. show version date then, if the file pointer is on the file TOOLS.HLP and you press the 1 key, the ZDE editor will automatically run and you will be editing the file TOOLS.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. :L SDZ.COM - A Sorted Directory Utility This program has been mentioned elsewhere as one 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. :M 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 elsewhere. This shows you syntax and usage. This information is hardcoded 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. The files Z-4-AT.HLP and this file, TOOLS.HLP, are .HLP files. A0:COMMANDS> help a:z-4-at would invoke the main help file, Z-4-AT.HLP. The file TOOLS.HLP, this file, is a "limb" or "branch" of this main file. .HLP files may be nested in a tree-like structure. :N CRUNCH.COM And UNCRUNCH.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 compressed, a much smaller file with the same first name and a filetype with a Z 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 is to use CRUNCH followed by library packaging. See below for library tools. :O LPUT.COM And LBREXT.COM And ZLT.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, ZLT, Z Library Typer, lets you view (type out) a member of a library, compressed or not. :P ZERR - An Error Handler When all else fails (the Z-System command processor can't find a flow control, resident, transient or extended command, or something else is wrong), if an "error handler" is installed and available, it will run it. ZERR is a popular one. It announces the nature of the error, presents you with the command in error and lets you edit the command and reissue it. This sure beats what most operating systems do. CP/M, for example, just echos the command in error followed by a ?. ZERR is "installed" by typing: A0:COMMANDS> zerr :Q Z-4-AT.HLP And TOOLS.HLP The Main .HLP File And A Limb Off The Main .HLP File If you got to TOOLS from Z-4-AT, you must have typed: A0:COMMANDS> help a:z-4-at To return to the main .HLP file, Z-4-AT, type a period (.) or a caret <^>. A0:COMMANDS> help a:tools would be the way to browse the TOOLS help file without accessing its "parent." .HLP files come in several flavors. These two are "user-indexed." There is a way to create "HELP-indexed" .HLP files as well. .HLP files are text files which may be viewed with an editor or simply TYPEd. The best way to browse them is with HELP.COM. Notice how you get hilighting by bracketing phrases with ctrl-A and ctrl-B.