Micro_Cornucopia_15_Dec83.pdf

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December

1983

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dumping the Screen on a BBI .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 4

BBII Video Calculations ................................................ 6

Your Serial Port Isn't Feeling Its Oats .................................. 10

Great Eight Kaypro ................................................... 14

SBASIC Learning Disk ................................................ 34

Adventuring Alone .................................................... 35

REGULAR FEATURES

Slicer Column ....................

C'ing Clearly .....................

FORTHwords ....................

Pascal Procedures .................

Kaypro Column ..................

SBASIC Column .................

On Your Own ....................

Technical Tips ....................

"THE ORIGINAL BIG BOARD"

OEM - INDUSTRIAL - BUS.INESS.- SCIENTIFIC

SINGLE BOARD C'OMPUTER KIT!

Z-80 CPU!

64K RAM!

(DO NOT CONFUSE WITH ANY OF QUR FLATTERING IMITATORS!)

....:

:::)

..J

a:J

. ..J

oct

;;;:

oct

::::;

oct

:::E

THE BIG BOARD PROJECT: With thousands sold worldwide and over two years of field experience, the Big

Board may just be one of the most reliable single board computers available today. This is the same design that

was licensed by Xerox Corp. as the basis for their 820 computer.

The Big Board gives you the right mix of most needed computing features all on one board. The Big Board was

designed from scratch to run the latest version of CP/M'. Just imagine all the off-the-shelf software that can be

run on the Big Board without any modifications needed.

279

(64K KIT

BASIC I/O)

:::)

FULLY SOCKETED!

FEATURES: (Remember, all this on one board!)

64K RAM

SIZE:

8 '

x 13

3/.

IN.

SAME AS AN 8 IN. DRIVE.

REQUIRES:

+5V

3 AMPS

+ -

12V

.5 AMPS.

80 CHARACTER VIDEO

With a crisp, flicker-free display that looks extremely sharp even on small

monitors. Hardware scroll and full cursor control. Composite video or split video

and sync. Character set is supplied on a 2716 style ROM, making customized

fonts easy. Sync pulses can be any desired length or polarity. Video may be

inverted or true. 5 x 7 Matrix - Upper

lower Case.

:::E

Uses Industry standard 4116 RAM·s. All 64K is available to the user, our VIDEO

and EPROM sections do not make holes in system RAM. Also, very special care

was taken in the RAM array PC layout to eliminate potential noise and glitches.

:z::

...,

a:J

:::)

Z-80 CPU

Running at 2.5 MHZ. Handles all 4116 RAM refresh and supports Mode 2

INTERUPTS. Fully buffered and runs 8080 software.

FLOPPY DISC CONTROLLER

Uses WD1771 controller chip with a TTL Data Separator for enhanced reliability .

IBM 3740 compatible. Supports up to four 8 Inch disc drives. Directly compatible

with standard Shugart drives such as the SA800 or SA801. Drives can be

configured for remote AC off-on. Runs CP/M" 2.2.

SERIAL

1/0

(OPTIONAL)

Full 2 channels using the Z80 SIO and the SMC 8116 Baud Rate Generator. FULL

RS232! For synchronous or asynchronous communication. In synchronous

mode, the clocks can be transmitted or received by a modem. Both channels can

be set up for either data-communication or data-terminals. Supports mode 21nl.

Price for all parts and connectors: $39.95

oct

:::E

TWO PORT PARALLEL

1/0

(OPTIONAL)

Uses Z-80 PIO. Full 16 bits, fully buffered, bi-directional. Uses selectable hand

shake polarity. Set of all parts and connectors for parallel I/O: $19.95

oct

..J

BASIC

1/0

Consists of separate parallel port (Z80 PIO) for use with an ASCII encoded

keyboard for Input. Output would be on the 80 x 24 Video Display .

oct

REAL TIME CLOCK (OPTIONAL)

Uses Z-80 CTC. Can be configured as a Counter on Real Time Clock. Set of all

parts: $9.95

..J

oct

$99.95

The blank Big Board PC Board comes complete with full

documentation (including schematics), the character ROM,

the PFM 3.3 MONITOR ROM, and diskette with the source

of our BIOS, BOOT, and PFM 3.3 MONITOR.

BLANK PC BOARD -

CP/M* 2.2 FOR BIG BOARD

The popular CP/M" D.O.S. to run on Big Board is available for 5139.00.

BIG BOARD SOFTWARE SPECIAL -

$149

Through special arrangement with COL we offer a powerful package of TDl Z-80

software that has a suggested retail of almost $600. Includes: Extended Disk

Business Basic, ZEDIT text editor, MACRO II Macro Assembler, liNKER,

DEBUG I and DEBUG II. Supplied on 8 in. diskette with extensive manual.

PFM 3.3

2K SYSTEM MONITOR

The real power of the Big Board lies in Its PFM 3.3 on board monitor. PFM commands Include: Dump Memory, Boot CP/M', Copy, Examine, Fill Memory, Test Memory, Go To,

Read and Write I/O Ports, Disc Read (Drive, Track, Sector), and Search PFM occupies one of the four 2716 EPROM locations provided. Z-80 Is a Trademark of Zilog.

Digital Research Computers

(OF TEXAS)

P.O. BOX 401565 • GARLAND, TEXAS 75040 • (214) 271-3538

TERMS: Shipments will be made approximately 3 to 6 weeks after we

receive your order. VISA, MC, cash accepted. We will accept COD's (for the

Big Board only) with a $75 deposit. Balance UPS COD. Add $4.00shipping.

USA AND CANADA ONLY

*TRADEMARK OF DIGITAL RESEARCH. NOT ASSOCIATED WITH DIGITAL RESEARCH OF CALIFORNIA, THE ORIGINATORS OF CPM SOFTWARE

**1 TO 4 PIECE DOMESTIC USA PRICE.

MICRO CORNUCOPIA

P.O. Box 223

Bend, Oregon 97709

503-382-8048

Editor

Publisher

David

Thompson

Graphic Design

Sandra Thompson

Technical Staff

Dana Cotant

Advertising Director

Alice Holbrow

Staff Assistant

Dorcas Dsenis

Typography

Patti Morris

Martin White

Irish Setter

MICRO CORNUCOPIA is the

single board systems journal sup-

porting systems programming lan-

guages and single board systems-

including the Big Board, Big Board

II, Xerox 820, Kaypro, and Slicer.

MICRO CORNUCOPIA is pub-

lished six times a year by Micro Cor-

nucopia of Oregon, P.O. Box 223,

Bend, Oregon 97709.

SUBSCRIPTION RATES:

1 yr.(6 issues)

1 yr. (first class)

1 yr. (Canada

Mexico)

1 yr. (other foreign)

$16.00

$20.00

$26.00

IICID ·CDIR'CD'II

December 1983

The Single Board Systems Journal

No. 15

Sonofa

Big Board!

Genealogy

The following is for all you computer

genealogy buffs-that is, of course,

those of you who are interested in the

genealogy of your computer.

In the beginning there was the Big

Board (BB I). The hardware was de-

signed by Jim Ferguson, the software by

Russell Smith (often referred to as the

Ferguson and Smith gang). The BB I was

announced in the summer of 1980 at a kit

price of $649. Jim Tanner of Digital Re-

search Computers of Texas-not to be

confused with Digital Research of Cali-

fornia-handled marketing, sales, and

support.

The initial reaction by the 5-100 buffs

was that the BB I couldn't be a serious

product. After all, what

you wanted to

add another port or some more RAM?

(And besides, 5-100 systems even had

their own magazine called 5-100 Micro-

. systems.)

Xerox 820

However, during the Fall of 1980 (as

opposed to the rise of 1980) Xerox pur-

chased rights to manufacture the Big

Board and put it inside their 820. Xerox

knew that IBM was working on a micro

so Xerox wanted to get their own system

onto the market VERY quickly.

The original 820 sold very well the first

few months as independent software

and hardware designers bought the new

system and checked it out for potential

new products. The 820 definitely needed

some help.

didn't include much soft-

ware, it had single-sided single-density

5" drives (unless you paid a gob extra for

single-density 8"), and it ran at 2.5 MHz.

Information about the system was

nonexistent. Xerox engineers had a very

bad case of "not invented here" so they

Make all orders payable in U.S.

funds on a U.S. bank, please.

ADVERTISING RATES: Available

on request.

CHANGE OF ADDRESS: Please

send your old label and new ad-

dress.

SOFTWARE, HARDWARE, AND

BOOK VENDORS: We would very

much like to review your CP

MSDOS compatible products. Send

materials to the Review Depart-

ment, Micro Cornucopia.

CP/M is a trademark of Digital Research, Inc.

acted as though the 820 didn't exist. Be-

cause the 820 was a very close copy of the

BB I, some of us knew where to get infor-

mation (many Xerox dealers had to ser-

vice the 820 using only the $5.00 BB I

documentation package from DRC of

Texas.)

I contacted Xerox marketing and en-

gineering about supporting technical

folks via Micro

The answer from mar-

keting was a resounding silence. Engin-

eering wasn't so subtle. The engineering

manager told me that I was not to speak

to any of his engineers. (And then, what

hurt most of all, he told his engineers

that they weren't to speak to me.) Xerox

was very concerned that someone might

discover the genealogy of the 820.

Xerox had hired Jim Ferguson to help

them with system configuration details

but the company refused to listen when

Jim suggested that they go to 4 MHz and

double density. Much later, the 820-II

came out with 4 MHz and double densi-

ty. Surprise!

Xerox had high hopes for the 820 so

they manufactured a whole scad of

boards and shipped off thousands of

systems to their official distributor,

Hamilton Avnet. The rumor has it that

two years later, Hamilton Avnet was still

sitting on over 10,000 820-ls. (Not exact-

ly the cushiest thing to sit on.)

Anyway, the independent software

and hardware folks got tired of trying to

pry information out of Xerox (and sales

of the 820 were struggling, partially be-

cause of lack of independent software

and hardware) so they looked around for

another system to support.

Kaypro

Meanwhile, Non Linear Systems, a

small manufacturer of digital meters,

purchased two Big Boards. Lo and be-

hold there soon appeared the KayComp

computer. They used that name until the

original owner of "KayComp" found out

about Non Linear. So, the name became

Kaypro II.

The Kaypro II is a Big Board with a few

modifications (actually more modifica-

tions than Xerox made). Non Linear

used eight 64K bit RAM chips instead of

(continued on page 42)

LITTIIS

Dear Editor,

I am writing you to let you know that I

highly recommend Cascade Electronics

to Micro C readers. Dave and Kathy Gar-

ner provide excellent service.

A couple of us got six of their Shugart

SA800-2 eight inch disk drives at about

$100 each. They arrived promptly and

were in excellent shape. In fact, they

were immaculate. We have been run-

ning some of the drives 8 to 10 hours a

day since April and they have been quite

dependable.

Anyone needing disk drives, blank

disks, power supplies, or enclosures

should get a hold of them. Dave and

Kathy sell quality merchandise and are

really nice people to deal with.

Contact them at Cascade Electronics,

Rt. 1 Box 8, Randolph, Mn. 55065, 507-

645-7997.

Alan Gomes

14612 San Bruno Drive #3

La Mirada, CA 90638

Dear Editor,

I have had some success doing word

processing for fellow students here in

Bellingham, Washington. I charge $1.50

per page and give my customers a rough

draft to edit.

seems expensive to many

people but they can't beat the quality.

My Kaypro and Tp:..1 printer really do a

good job. I'm looking for a Gemini-10

printer for the rough drafts.

KKey is not all it's cracked up to be.

The commands to alter CP/M don't al-

ways work.

you set it to load a program

on a cold boot (but not on warm boots) it

will load the program on all boots, so you

can't get back to CP/M. Also, it some-

times sends my system out to Sunday

lunch with no warning and it doesn't do

keypad redefinitions. I have heard from

another group that KKey is good but I've

had nothing but problems with it.

Norman Bruland

1409.5 Harris Ave

Bellingham, WA 98225

let me know rightaway.

would be the first

diagnosed case of multi-cornucopiitis (if the

sound of that doesn't send chills down your

doctor's spine, then he has no backbone). Be-

cause it is relatively new (no cases yet), there

is no known cure (except, of course, expira-

tion which is the ultimate cure, and too horri-

ble to even consider).

Your Shugart should have a jumper option

that lets it respond when either of two drives

are selected. One side of the disk becomes one

drive, the other is on the reverse side.

Note, that you must have a double-sided

disk (the index hole is offset farther) to be able

to access the back side (unless there is another

option that lets the drive access the back side

of a single-sided disk).

You will also have to format the back side-

in a double-sided drive that looks like two

drives-before you can access it. Formatting

the disk in any other environment won't

work.

Editor's note:

Amen!

got some of their two-drive cabi-

nets with power supplies as well as their 8"

drive~.

Everything I've received has been as

good or better than advertised and service has

been excellent.

Also, thanks, Alan for the letter. It's not

very often that someone takes the time to

write about good service, usually

hear from

people after they've been royally (or unroyal-

ly) bushwhacked.

Dear Editor,

I would like to suggest an extension to

William King's article on page 4 of issue

#14. Readers should do two patches to

the BB

monitor.

At address F324H, change the 60H to

68H. At address F32AH change the 40H

to 48H.

These patches set the H bit in the

STEPIN

STEPOUT commands, so that

the heads remain loaded during seeks.

Otherwise the head will chatter during

some seeks.

Alex Cameron

14A Somers Ave

Malvern, Victoria 3144 Australia

Dear Editor,

One of your readers said that "every-

thing else gets second priority when I

find Micro C in my mailbox." I can un-

derstand that. I grabbed your pub as I

walked in from work one evening, then

sat down and started reading. My wife

joked, "I can handle your ignoring me

now but

you bring that magazine to

bed . .. " I accepted the hint and re-

moved the copies of Micro C from my

nightstand.

Mter all, one must draw the line when

it affects one's marriage. I put them on

her side.

On a less significant note, I'm still hav-

ing problems making my Shugart 851

double sided 8" drive look like two

drives to the Big Board. You and DRe's

folks make it sound very simple so I must

be missing something.

By the way, the utility on User's disk

#11 for configuring the Okidata 92

works great.

supports almost all the

optional output formats and is simple to

use.

folks are

interest~d,

I would be

willing to write a utility to download

graphics from a Heath terminal to the

uL92.

Bernie Lannan

536 liE"

Robins Air Force Base, GA

Dear Editor,

Mter reading all the back issues of Mi-

cro C (and enjoying each one) I became

somewhat overwhelmed by all the mod-

ifications your readers have submitted

for the BB

In view of your background and expe-

rience, I would appreciate your sugges-

tions on which modifications you would

you were building a BB I and it were

going to be your only system for a while.

Chris Paulsen

1138 E Electra Ln

Sandy, UT 84070

Editor's note:

don't know whether to offer my condo-

lences to your wife or to you. What if she too

finds Micro

habit forming? Where will you

keep the magazines then? If it's between you,

Editor's note:

Dana and

are building up a BB

system at

this very moment (our third) and I'll tell you

what we're doing to it (and in what order) in

case you're doing a little at a time.

First, we will install the new character

ROM (version

2.3). I

refuse to look at the old

characters.

Second, we will be doing the

MHz up-

grade (we will use Otto Hiller's mod from Is-

sue

#2,

page

and we will get the

MHz

clock from the SWP dual density board). If

weren't planning to add the dual density

board and

didn't want to spend much mon-

ey,

I'd go to issue

page

and do the 3.5

MHz mod (a Z80A processor might be the

only part you'd need to purchase). If

were

feeling rich, I'd do the

MHz mod with all

Z80B parts and 150 ns RAM. (I'd be sure to

read the Editor's note on that page, especially

since

wrote it.)

Finally, of course,

will be adding the SWP

dual density board.

halves the data access

time and, of course, more than doubles the

Micro Cornucopia, Number 15, December 1983

amount of data on a disk. Great upgrade for

the

I'd consider this a basic system (assuming

two

Shugart or Siemens drives in a simple

cabinet like the ones from Odd ball or Cascade

Electronics). Don't scrimp on the keyboard

unless you hunt and peck with a sledge. The

keyboard and the monitor (and character set)

can really make or break an otherwise good

system.

like my BMC green and US] PI-3

amber monitors.)

Other goodies that I'd add if there were

money and time include-the EPROM pro-

grammer from Issue

#6,

a third drive, and

the Dyna RAM disk package from LA Soft-

ware or the Co-Power board from SWP (it has

a RAM disk built in).

Dear Editor,

I hate to be a spoil sport, but I think it's

important so here goes.

got the sche-

matics of the Kaypro II and they are very

readable. However, the draftsman

shows +5V as a signal ground symbol.

The correct symbol should be a line, a

circle, or an arrow.

Question: where do I get the rest of the

schematics, such as power supply, CRT

display, and drives? Back in the olden

days, schematics for radios and TVs

were hard to come by, but it wasn't long

before you could get all the information

from Sam's. Computers aren't there yet.

Harvey DeGering

1245 East Washington Blvd

Pasadena, CA 91104

PFM monitor listing in issues

and

asa

guide when they disassemble the monitor in

the 820. Disk formatters, serial print drivers,

modem software, and the EPROM program-

ming package run on the 820. All these pro-

grams are very machine specific

essentially

any software should run identically on both

systems. However, there is no reason that

Xerox 820 owners (as well as

BB ]

and Kaypro

owners) wouldn't benefit from a regular 820

column.

For a composite video adaptor, check this

issue.

GOTO 100

10 KILL

n<PROGR~AME>.BAKn

20 NAME

n<PROGR~AME>.BAsn

SAVE n<PROGRAM...,NAME>.BAS·n

AS~

~ n<PROGR~AME>.BAKn

Dear Editor,

I am building a BB II from bare board

and plan on using it in my MSCS re-

search project (designing a graphics edi-

tor).

I would like to get into contact with

other BB II owners so we can exchange

hints and kinks.

would be great if they

had access to a UNIX system so we could

correspond by UNIX mail.

George Wilder

2 S 445 Cherice Dr

Warrenville,

60555

312-979-0817 work

Dear Editor,

I fixed the shift-lock problem in the

PFM monitor. I put 18H (jump reI) at ad-

dress F449H (was a 20H). This change

forces the monitor to jump over the shift

lock function.

The best change I made to my system,

however, was the video wiggle fix by

Darrell Collins in Issue #13 (page 36).

This simple fix really put the video wig-

gle problem to bed for good. Darrell

should give himself a pat on the back for

coming up with this one!

Bryan Johnson

234 Ave Santa Barbara

San Clemente, CA 92672

Editor's note:

I agree with both your concerns regarding

the lack of schematics and the lack of stand-

ardization of schematic symbols.

Actually, the up-arrow we used is probably

the most standard way to signify +5V. The

problem we faced trying

provide schematics

for the other components on the Kaypro is

that only the disk drives came from one source

(and the circuit on the drives has changed).

The power supplies and the CRT monitors

came from innumerable sources and I'm not

sure that even Kaypro could translate a serial

number into a particular monitor or power

supply.

Also, computer companies are very secre-

tive about their circuits (especially when they

are first released). Sam's simply reproduces

the circuit diagrams and information provid-

ed by the TV and radio manufacturers. That,

obviously won't work when many companies

are trying

keep the general public from get-

ting schematics.

40 PRINT "<PROGRAM-NAME>.":;;'" AND.;I

BACKED-upn

50 END

100 REM BEGIN PROGRAM HERE

Figure

1 -

Your BASIC Back-up Program

Editor's note:

Your shift-lock fix is good for those who

don't want the shift but do want

send nulls

programs etc. Those who would rather

have their systems throwaway nulls should,

instead, change location F44BH from 34H

OOH.

The trick to translating the RAM address

i1lto the equivalwt spot ill ROM, is to sub-

tract FOOOH and add WH. So, the data in

F44BH (in RAM) came from 045BH in the

ROM.

Dear Editor,

I have two complaints with Micro e.

One, it is late (and getting later) and two,

the Xerox 820 column was discontinued.

I can't believe there is nothing to write

about. Some topics I'd like to see are:

composite video interface and what bugs

we will encounter when using the 820.

Michael Miller

(No address on note)

Editor's note:

] didn't stop the Xerox 820 column; John

Marlin stopped writing it and no one else has

taken it on. We are now paying our colum-

nists $50 per column. I'd like to hear from

anyolle who would like to take

the Xerox

820.

Yes, there is a LOT of similarity between

the two systems. 820 owners are using the

Dear Editor,

5 MHz is really great! I made the drive

fix from issue 11 and speeded up my

Kaypro and everything worked perfect-

ly!

I compiled a little program in JRT Pas-

cal.

took 55 seconds at 2.5 MHz and 40

seconds at 5 MHz (not half the time be-

cause of the disk accesses). Then I ran a

test of prime numbers;

and behold,

the slow clock took 78 seconds, the fast

took only 40. This is Great!

I found that I could plug a wire into

U86's socket (where pin 4 used to reside)

rather than soldering a wire to resistor

R26. Radio Shack's ribbon cable has the

right size conductor to plug into the

socket. All in all, the instructions were

very clear and the whole conversion (in-

cluding disk timing, ROM monitor, and

speed) took about 90 minutes.

Also, I discovered a little trick in BAS-

Ie. You see, MBASIC does not create a

backup file when you save the program

you are working on. So, I use the follow-

ing code at the beginning of every pro-

gram. (See Figure

1.)

To save your program the first time,

enter RUN 30, then RUN 20 (avoids the

"no file" error message). After that, sim-

ply enter RUN 10.

you simply enter

RUN, then this program is bypassed and

the main program is run.

Dave Truckenmiller

501 S Bennett

Palatine,

60067

(Letters continued on page 36)

Micro Cornucopia, Number 15, December 1983

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