TABLE OF CONTENTS

$3.00

Word ProcessingWord Processing at Micro C .4Wordstar, A Word Processor .4Vedit, A Text Editor 5Two Great Spells 6Smartkey 8Scribble, A Text Formatter 8

Tiny Basic In ROM 15Double Density 19

REGULAR FEATURES

Letters 2FORTHwords ; 10Designer's Corner 12Wantads 15

SIZE: 0'1> x 13'1. IN.SAME AS AN S IN. DRIVE.REQUIRES: '5V @ 3 AMPS• - 12V @ .5 AMPS.

FULLY SOCKETED!

"THE BIG BOARD"~ ~r::J OEM - INDUSTRIAL - BUSINESS - SCIENTIFIC

~~~~\V SINGLE BOARD COMPUTER KIT!~<v.~ z-so CPU! 64K RAM!

~O

THE FERGUSON PROJECT: Three years ln the works. and maybe too good to be true. A tribute to hard headed,no compromise, hlgh performance, American engineering! The Big Board glves you ail the most neededcompuling fealures on one board at a very reasonable cost. The Big Board was deslgned from scratch to run lhelatest version 01 CP/M'. Just Imagine ail the oll-the-shell soltware that can be run on the Big Board wlthout anymodifications needed! Take a Big Board, add a couple of 8 Inch dise drives, power supply, an enclosure, C.R.T.,and you have a lotal Business Syslem for about 1/3 the cost you might expeclto pay.

FEATURES: (Remember, ail this on one board!)64K RAM 24 x 80 CHARACTER VIDEO

(64K KITBASIC 1/0)

Uses Industry siandard 4116 RAM'S. Ali 64K Is avallable 10 Ihe user, our VIDEOand EPROM sections do not make holes ln syslem RAM. Also, very special carewas taken ln 'he RAM array PC 'ayoullo ellmlnate potential noise and glltches.

Z-80 CPURunnlng at 2.5 MHZ. Handles ail 4116 RAM relresh and supporls Mode 2INTERUPTS. Fully bullered and runs SOOO software.

SERIAL 1/0 (OPTIONAL)FuU2 channels uslng Ihe zao 510 and Ihe SMCS116 Baud Raie Generalor. FULLRS232! For synchronous or asynchronous communlcallon. In synchronousmode, Ihe clocks can be Iransmilled or recelved by a modem. Both channels canbe set up lor eUher dala-communlcallon or daia-terminais. Supports mode 21nl.Priee lor ail parts and conneclors: $65.

BASIC 1/0Conslsls 01 a separate parallel pori (Zao PlO) lor use wUh an ASCII encodedkeyboard lor Input. Outpul would be on the SO x 24 Video Dlsplay.

Wllh a crlsp, IIIcker-lree dlsplay thal looks exlremely sharp even on smallmonUors. Hardware scroll and lull cursor control. Composite video or split videoand sync. Characler setls supplled on a 2716 slyle ROM, maklng cuslomlzedlonts easy. Sync pulses can be any deslred lenglh or polarlly. Video may beInverted or 1rue. 5 x 7 Mahhc ~ Upper & Lower Case

FLOPPY DISC CONTROLLERUses WD1771 controller chlp wllh a TTL Daia Separator lor enhancedreliabilily. IBM 3740 compatible. Supports up to lour a inch dise drives. Directlycompallble wllh slandard Shugarl drives such as IheSAOOO or SASOt. Drives canbe conllgured tor remole AC oll-on. Runs CP/M' 2.2.

TWO PORT PARALLEL 1/0 (OPTIONAL) 1

Uses z·so PlO. Full 16 bits, 'ully bullered. bl-dlrecllonal. User seleclable handshake polarily. Set 01 ail paris and conneclors lor parallel 1/0: $19.95

REAL TIME CLOCK (OPTIONAL)Uses z-so CTC. Can be conllgured as a Counier on Real Time Clock. Sel 01 ailparIs: $9.95

BLANK PC BOARD - $175The blank Big Board PC Board cornes complete with full documentation(including schematics), the character ROM, the PFM 3.3 MONITOR ROM,and a diskeltewith the source of ourBIOS, BOOT, and PFM 3.3MONITOR.

PFM 3.3 2K SYSTEM MONITOR

CP/MO 2.2 FOR BIG BOARDThe popular CP/M' 0.0.5. 10 run on Big Board Isavailable lor $159.00.

PRICE CUT!The real power orthe Big Board lies ln Ils PFM 3.00n board monllor. PFM commands Include: Dump Memory, Bool CP/M', Copy. Examine, Fiil Memory, Tesl Memory, GoTo.Read and Wrlle 1/0 Ports, Dise Read (Drive, Track, Seclor), and Search. PFM occupies one 01 the lour 2716 EPROM localions provided.Z-SO is a Trademark 01 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 alter wereceive yourorder. VISA. MC, cash accepted. We will accept COD's (fortheBig Board only) with a $75 deposit. Balance UPS COD. Add $4.00 shipping.

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.

Ilcaa caaNuca'llMICRO CORNUCOPIA11740N.W. West RoadPortland, Oregon 97229

503-645-3253 April 1982 The Journal of the Big Board Users No.S

Editor & PublisherDavid J. Thompson

Teehnieal EditorRuth Fredine-Burt

Graphie DesignSandra Thompson

TypographyPatti Morris & Martin White

Irish Setter

Cover IllustrationGerald Torrey

MICRO CORNUCOPIA is pub­lished six times a year by Micro Cor­nucopia of Oregon, 11740 N.W.West Road, Portland, Oregon97229.

SUBSCRIPTION RATES:1 yr. (6 issues) $16.001 yr. (Canada & Mexico) $20.001 yr. (other foreign) $26.00

AlI subscription orders payable inUnited States funds only, please.

ADVERTISING RATES: Availableon request.

CHANGE OF ADDRESS:Pleasesend old label and new address.

SOFTWARE, HARDWARE, ANDBOOK VENDORS: Micro Cornu­copia is establishing a group of re­viewers. We would very much liketo review your Big Board compatibleproducts for Micro C. Please sendmaterial to Review Editor, MicroComucopia.

WRITER'S GUIDELINES: AlIitems should be typed, double­spaced on white paper or better yet,on disk. (Your disk will be returnedpromptly.) Payment is in contribu­tor'scopies.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Pleasesound off.

CPIM is a trademark of Digital Research, Inc.

Copyright 1981 by Micro Cornucopia.AlI rights reserved.

AlI Write!

Ward ProeessingWeIl, here it is, word processing

from one who processes words hourupon hour, day after day. Actually 1don't write text aIl the time, it justseems like il.

Quite a bit of this issue is devotedto word processing, but it barelyscratches the surface of this im­mense field. The software 1 am nowusing is not necessarily the best; ifswhat l'm using, and it does the jobvery weIl. If it didn't do the job weIl,1 wouldn't be able to produce MicroC in my "spare time."

New ProductsThe last month or so has been very

interesting for us. We have been try­ing to get several new things readyto distribute to the group. Ifs really alot of work. Even an apparently sim­ple task like putting together a newUser disk almost didn't get done intime for this issue.

This process really makes me ap­preciate the amount of effort thatgoes into getting a product ready formarket. Il was March before we be­gan shipping FORTli IN ROM de­spite being certain in early Januarythat it was "a smidgin away fromperfection." Thanks to HamptonMiller, Arne Henden, Sig Peterson,and, of course, Rob Devoe, FORTHIN ROM got shaken out verystoutly. (And having it resident inthe system is really growing on me.)

'Undo' earefullyA couple of poor folks have called

asking how to undo the damagethey did to their directory after 'Un­doing the Fatal Erase' (see page 10 inissue #4).

They didn't reboot the monitor (aHARDWARE reset) after correctingthe directory.

If you don't want to take anychances with your disks, simply usethe Memory command (MF72F) andchange the OA8H 'write' back to a088H 'read' manuaIly. Then you canread-on (not write-on) in peace.

MailDelivery time for Micro Chas al­

ways been slow because we aremailing bulk rate.

Issue #1 took 7-10 days on thewest coast and 14-21 days on the eastcoast. Issue #4 took 15-25 days onthe west coast and the east coast isstill receiving it (after 41 days). Myfather-in-law lives about 15 milesfrom here and he received issue #4on February 25th. We mailed issue#4 on February 5th.

Also, bulk mail gets lost fairly eas­ily. One subscriber has yet to receivean issue via bulk mail (his subscrip­tion began with issue #1), but he hasreceived every foIlow-up issue wesent via first-c1ass (same label).

Bulk mail does not get forwarded.Period. Even if you leave a forward­ing address and bribe your postman,the post office simply ash-cans bulkmail if you're not there.

Anyway, 1 thought l'd let youknow what the situation is. 1suspectthat more folks will opt for first-c1assonce they find out the kind of servicethey are getting from the post office.First-c1ass is still very good. Threedays seems to be the maximum any­where in the US.

Final noteDaryl Coulthart, author of

"Translating Your Keyboard" in is­sue #4 was also the source of the De­signer's Corner in that issue. ThanksDaryl.

{)r;1 /rh David ThompsonEditor & Publisher

Letters

ccu ts the best solution for driveA.C. control.

TER MS: Include $1.50 forpostagefhandling. NYS residentsadd tax.C.O.D.,Check~or money order

Del: i$ .<IvailA.hle in kit form for$18.95 0 r "s s • mb 1. d $ 2 9.95.For JOln. 2nd drive harness add$3.00

Our Drive Control Unit energizes thedrive ooly when disk acceSB 19absolutely necessary. Media lastslonger and the system 18 quiet.

Editor's note:Yhank you very much for the offer, Phil. l

will definiteiy be taking you up on it.

•••

Dear Editor,1 wanted to let you know how much 1

enjoy each issue of Micro C. In additionto being technically and graphically 'topshelf', one of its best features is its dis­tinct personality. It certainly is a publica­tion with' a great deal of heart.

l'd like to suggest that Micro C contin­ue and perhaps even increase its promo­tion of program readability by encourag­ing authors to dearly document theirprograms. (Perhaps they should readSoftware Yools by Kernighan & Plauger.

If space permits, l'd like to see eachprogram accompanied by its functionalequivalent in 'algorithmic language', aflowchart, or a paragraph of text (in thatorder).

As you can tell, program darity andreadability is one of my personal cru­sades and l'd like to volunteer to walkthrough sorne programs before they arepublished. My bookshelf indudes boththe Kernighan and Plauger book (the lat­est edition in Pascal) and Brodie's bookon FORTH. (A neat book. 1can tell fromreading it that he and 1 would probablybe great friends.) And 1wish to help Mi­cro C become even better.Philip Plumbo1128 Dayton AveSt Paul MN 55104

board area of the ROM so 1can use thesefunctions.

Incidentally, 1 changed my flashingcursor by using DDT to create the follow­ing program at 100H.

MVIA,855TAFF76RET

1 then 'SAVED' it as CUR50R.COM.1l's not a true reverse video type of flash­ing cursor but 1 find it very useful whenusing DATA5TAR to enter fields ofdashes.

AIso, 1 noted that one of the letters inissue #4 (pg 2) mentioned random up­per/lower case changes. 1had that prob­lem and after much playing with thestash routine at FF33H, 1traced the trou­ble to the keyboard encoder. It wasgenerating random control codes. 50, 1was immediately in the market for a newkeyboard.Peter Duckworth11 Chelsea EmbankmentLondon SW3 4LE

Dear Editor,Thank you very much for sending me

issues 1-3 of Micro Cornucopia. 1 foundthe quality of the editorship and con­tents outstanding, and look forward toreceiving further issues.

1am grateful for the tip that the 8th biton the keyboard can be used despite thestatement in the BB manual. 50, 1 havepurchased a surplus Keytronic keyboardwith 12 8-bit special function keys andam now working on a patch to the key-

dently, as the Z80A heats up, the inter­nai timing changes just enough to makesorne instructions unreliable.

My next project for the Big Board is tointerface a graphies display to the paral­lei port (probably something similar tothe Micrograph display described in By­te) and use the Big Board-graphies dis­play to emulate a Tektronix 4010. 1wouldbe very interested if other Big Boardowners have ideas on the subject.Ken StephensonPhysics DivisionArgonne National LaboratoryArgonne, IL 60439

Dear Editor,What'sour exciting adventure? We are

trying to interest a large corporation herein building its own micros (20-30). Wehave the staff and expertise to do it, andthe corporation wants to use micros butit is afraid of the lack of support from lo­cal agents.

We provide hardware and softwaresupport for our own minis (Four-PhaselV90s) throughout Kuwait, 5audi, andIraq.

Now the corporation wants microsscattered around the Gulf for productionand materials control systems and alsoas front-end processors for equipmentand labor systems. This remote process­ing will eut down on communicationsfrom the sites to the headquarters. (Youcan imagine what data communicationsis like here-you tell Ahmad to ride hiscamel to the head office with the tapes.)

If we can talk the corporation into as­sembling its own micros, it will becheaper and support will be guaranteed.A few spare boards on hand will do thetrick.ToddLDavisComputer DepartmentICGBox 25068Safat, Kuwait

716-3770369

PO BOX 81PITTSFORD NY 14534TECH.DlIII

OPlRO.ICS

15 YOUR DI5K DRIVEWORKING OVERTIMEWITH ONLY MEDIA WEARTO SHOW fOR Il?

Big Board owners no longer have talook for connectors,relays,and aplace ta put them. DCU camescomplcl~ vith everythlng and 18deslgned to he u~slly tnstalledvith!n aIl popular 8 ln. drives.DCC rnonrtts on the dtsk AC connectorand evcn energizes only on zerocrnsstngs.Aux output av~il8ble (or2nd drive. (Big Board should havethe eTC option)Pleag(! order DeufsB for BigRoard systt>ms.fuT aIl other systemsorder DCV and state type of drivesand control 1er used in your system.

Your fI oppy drive ratates disksconstantly,grlndlng dirt into thedelicate surface which contributesta sh'Jrtened media life whilegeneratlng unnecessary noise.

Dear Editor,Congratulations on producing three

excellent issues of Micro-C.1bought a bare Big Board early in 1981

and over a period of about 6 months, ac­cumulated enough parts to bring it up.l'm using it with a Keytronics WordProcessor keyboard and a converted TVset. 1had two problems with the boardwhen 1first turned it on: 1) a bad data busbuffer and 2) extreme instability in thevideo crystal oscillator (!?!). To be fair toDigital Research, 1did not buy the crystalfrom them, but got it from Quality Com­puter Parts in California. The fix waseasy: a 100 pf capacitor from pin 13, U11toground.

One should be verrry careful with the4 MHz mod in Micro-C #2. The asym­metric dock does not satisfy Z80A specs.1 tried two Z80A's. One ran the monitormemory test OK, but crashed when 1med to run CP/M (wiped out the direc­tory, too). The other Z80A seemed, atfirst, to run everything OK but afterabout 10 minutes certain instructionsstarted to fail a few percent of the time. 1could get the processor to work again bydabbing alcohol on it, cooling it off. Evi-

2 Micro Cornucopia, Number 5, April 1982

ANNOUNCINGTHE BIG BOARD ADD--ON

•••• FEATURES ••••

Program 2708, 2716, 2732, and 2764 type EPROHS. With four programmingsockets you can program lots of memory at once. Programs EPROMS sequentiallyor in paraIleI for small production runs.

Second bank (64K) of memory will allow fast screen swaps, larger EPROMprogram storage, etc. Memory is fully-static 6116 CMOS type RAMS which willallow RAM/EPROM intermixing. Battery back-up for CMOS RAM.

More goodies. Sixteen channels of both 8-bi t AID and DIA conversion.Connect any of the FCC approved modems by NOVATION directly into the board.Plus, there 's an S-100 connector which will allow you to connect an S-100card directly or interface with an S-100 motherboard. And speaking offeatures, voice output with the on-board VOTRAX phoneme generator chip.

AlI this plus: four seriaI channels, four parallel ports, everythingsocketed, and it runs at 4 MHz. (In fact, with aIl this, you May just forgetabout the Big Board altogether!)

This is the board you have been waiting ror. This board is intended forthe serious builder and the novice alike. It will be available in bareboard, full kit, partial kits, and assembled and tested. The board has thesame dimensions as the BIG BOARD so it piggy-backs into the same space.Available 3/20/82.

Bare board ................................•................ $Complete package

AlI Priees Plus Postage

•••• OTHER BIG BOARD ACCESSORIES ••••

99.00CALL

Big Board power supply kit (BB + 2 DRIVES + ) •••••••••••••• $ 85.00Big Board power supply A&T ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 135.00C.ITOH 8510 9xN matrix, graphies, 5 char sets printer (ser.) 645.00C.ITOH 8510 same as above but par. interface•••••••••••••••• 595.004Mhz mod that WORKS •••• $7.50 BIG BOARD PARTS............. CALL

E.C.R.L.,INC.P.O. BOX 387

CANBY, OREGON 97013-0387503-266-4982 ·24 URS· or 503-656-3382

WORD PROCESSING

Word Processing At Micro CBy David Thompson

Wordstar, A Word Processor

1 can visualize myself doing mywriting off on sorne quiet mountainmeadow or a secluded, shelteredbeach, a place far away from the bus­t1e and jangle that normally sur­rounds me. 50, writing could onceagain be my connection with a mys­tical self.

Unfortunately, however, 1 will nolonger wander off with a pen, a pad,and a crust of bread to tirelesslyscratch out prose. The bread soundsOK but 1 refuse to scrawl ideas, oneby one onto a piece of college-ruledwoodpulp.

50, until someone cornes up witha compact, CMOS Big Board, l'mtied to a power line because l'm ab­solutely addicted to word process­ing.

1 am now using the followingsoftware.

1. Vedit (text editor)2. Scribble (formatter)3. The Word (spelling)4. Unica (unix-like functions)5. My typesetting formatter

And the following hardware.1. The Big Board (three S" drives)2. MX-SO printer (dot matrix)3. Diablo 1650 printer

Word processing at Micro CAlmost everything in the maga­

zine has come in on disk. 1do an ini­tial edit before dumping new articlesout on the Epson printer. This out­put gets the final editing.

After l've entered all the changeson the articles, Sandy takes newprintouts and character counts(done by Unica) and lays out the is­sue. She specifies type sizes, high­lights subheads, figures out head­lines, and so on. This process takesabout a week.

Once Sandy has things pretty wellplaced and specified, 1 enter thetypesetting control codes so that thetype will come out the right face,size, spacing, width, etc. This usu­ally takes three or four evenings.

Once all the text is ready to go totypesetting, 1 run it through a refor­matting program (ala Lynn Coch­ran) that makes the disk readable bythe typesetting controller. Now PattiMorris and Martin White get to cor-

4

rect all the formatting errors 1 made(the after-l a.m. ones are the mostinteresting) and then output thetypeset copy.

We get the typeset text in sheets(called galleys) and Sandy thenspends a week pasting them ontolarge two-page boards called flats. Ifwe find any drastic errors then wehave to have sorne type reset, other­wise we just vow to do better nextissue (vows are better than nothing)and plug on.

After the flats are finished weheave a big sigh of relief and takethem down to Dave Cramer (theprinter). About a week later we getback 24,000 pages of magazine tocollate, staple, trim, label, resort,count, and mail.

The whole process from the timethe writing and editing are finished

Review by Jim Showker, Jr.

Without question, Wordstar isthe most popular word processingprogram on the market. It is themainstay of the Micropro line andeverything the company sells is anextension for Wordstar.

1 got the Big Board so that 1 couldwrite letters and technical articles athome. 50 it is very nice having a sys­tem that works well with Wordstar.

The BB emulates an ADM3-Awhich is on the Wordstar configura­tion menu. This makes it very easyto get up and running since youdon't have to make any softwarepatches.

Using WordstarWordstar's best feature is its main

menu which is displayed at the topof the screen. This menu tells youyour page and line number, the filename, and a list of common com­mands.

1 especially like this feature be­cause 1 have a hard time remem­bering control-character type com­mands. (This also means that almost

to the time wemail an issue takes 4to 5 weeks.

50,1 get 3, maybe 4 weeks to selectthe material for the next magazine,write any additional articles, reviewany relevant or irrelevant software,and get the editing done.

Meanwhile l'm getting furtherand further behind on correspon­dence, as many contributors wellknow. (1 love you all and 1 think ofyou in my dreams when 1 havetime.) Therefore, extra little projectslike entering the Crowe Assemblersource take 6 months or more andneat litt1e software tools don't getdone.

1 no longer have any trouble fo­cusing my energies, just focusingmyeyes.

• ••

11174 Penrose St. #6Sun Valley, CA 91352

anyone cart sit down and begin us­ing it immediately.)

FeaturesYou can have the program right­

justify your text. It does this by ad­ding spaces between words. If youhave a variable pitch printer it willadd a small part of a space betweeneach letter rather than adding a fewwhole spaces.

Wordstar does continuous wrap­around. You only have to hit a car­riage-return at the end of a para­graph.

The program has a buffer so it cando such things as printing one docu­ment while you are editing another,or letting you type ahead of thescreen without losing characters. Ifyou run out of RAM space while youare typing, part of the file is auto­matically written out to the diskwithout interrupting you.

Page breaks are displayed as a lineon the screen. Special outputs in-

(continued next page)

Micro Cornucopia, Number 5, April 1982

WORD PROCESSING

Vedit, A Text EditorBy David Thompson

If 1 had to describe Vedit in afew words, 1 would say that it'ssmall (llK), fast (works primarily inmemory rather than on and off thedisk), simple (but becoming less sowith aIl the new features they are ad­ding), and user friendly (it operatespredictably) .

Configuring Vedit for the BigBoard is simple: you select 'Xerox820' from the menu, choose whichcontrol keys will perform whichfunctions, and you're set. (lt's a realadvantage to have famous off­spring.)

One thing 1particularly like aboutVedit is that it doesn't do its house­keeping in the file. Wordstar doesthis with a vengeance and soprinters, assemblers, typesetters,utilities, and other editors some-

(Wordstar continued)

c1ude underlining, double strike,boldface, and overstrike.

Mailmerge (an option) lets youproduce personalized form lettersand do sorne other special types ofprinting.

Wordstar relabels the original fileas a backup and the just-edited filebecomes the document file (this isstandard for text editors).

There is a special mode for creat­ing and altering assembly languagesource files. Editor's note: This non­document mode doesn't fill the file withspecial Words tar con trol characters.

NegativesWordstar is quite expensive and

unless you need a11 of its facilities thecost is hard to justify. It also takes awhile to become conversant with aIlthe features, but the menu makes itquite easy to get started.

AlI in aIl, Wordstar cornes close tobeing a universal word processor. Itwill handIe almost any conceivabletask. Whether it is worth the moneyis up to you.

MicroPro1299 Fourth StSan Rafael, CA 94901

•••Micro Cornucopia, Number 5, April 1982

times gag when they see Wordstarfiles. If you are preparing materialfor other folks (including Micro C)please run Wordstar in the non-doc­umentmode.

Running VeditVedit works in two modes, visual

and commando Visual mode doeswhat you'd expect any true screeneditor to do. You can go scrollingaround, typing over text, insertingtext, deleting text, and moving textfrom one place to another. An 'un­do' command returns the currentline to its original form. In visualmode the commands are CNTL-KEYand ESC-KEY sequences.

The command mode is a verypowerful line editor with manymore features than CP lM'sEO and amuch better user interface. You dothe global searches and replaces inthe command mode and you canchange many of the system setupssuch as tab stops, indentation, andline width. You can insert aIl or partof a disk file into the file you're edit­ing, or you can send any part of thefile you're editing to the printer orthe disk. (And that's just a start.) lnthis mode, one or two ordinary char­acters make up a commando

Themanual1 tend to use a manual as little as

possible. 1like to skim through it ini­tially to get wind of how a packageshould work and then 1 refer backwhen 1don't know how to do some­thing. Vedit's short tutorial, the de­tailed command descriptions, andthe brief command descriptionswork quite weIl for me. There aremore sections in the manual but 1haven't read them and probablywon't ever need to. It's a clear, com­plete manual.

UpdatesDuring the last five or six months

l've seen three updates. Each hasadded a significant feature to Vedit.

For instance, they have added asimple word-fill formatting functionthat fills each line of a paragraph towithin one word length of the linewidth you specify. They have also

added word-wrap which automati­cally adds a carriage-return, linefeedeach time your line reaches the spec­ified length. This feature is particu­larly important when you are en­tering text from written copy anddon't want to have to watch thescreen.

The following are sorne improve­ments they say are coming:1. A split screen display to let yousee what you're doing in commandmode.2. Easier to use search and replacecommands (yippee).3. Conditional global substitutionusing the visual mode.4. Making the command mode morepowerful and more Teco-like.5. Adding additional text registers(yahoo).6. Execute text registers as macrocommands (hooray).7. Do extensive terminal initializa­tion such as programming functionkeys.

Once you have purchased Vedit,you can subscribe to the update ser­vice. For $50.00 you get two updates(once every few months). And, con­sidering the additions they are plan­ning to the editor it would certainlyappear worth it.

Bug1have found only two bugs in the

latest version of Vedit. The configu­ration doesn't set the word wrap linelength correctly (but the commandmode does), and occasiona11y 1lose acharacter or two when 1 have it for­mat a paragraph.

ConclusionVedit is a very powerful text editor

though it doesn't have the menuingor complete word processing facili­ties that Wordstar has. However, atonly $145.00 Vedit does a lot for thepriee.

VeditCompuView Products618 LouiseAnn Arbor, MI 48103

• ••5

WORD PROCESSING

Two Great SpellsBy David Thompson

1 would be lost without a goodspelling program to make a finalcheck of the Micro C text before itgoes to the typesetter. A good spell­ing program not only points outthose little differences of opinion be­tween my built-in dictionary andWebster's latest, it also ferrets outmost of those buggy little typos.

1 have two spelling programs,both donated for review by their au­thors (bless their hearts). 1have usedThe Word on issues #3 and #4. 1re­ceived 5pell after completing issue#4.

They are both first c1ass. Theyboth work quickly and efficientlyeven though their methods and listsof features are quite different.

User friendlinessThe Word is friendly until you

have to review the words. REVIEWshows you only one word at a timeand the word is aIl upper case. Thismakes it difficult to remember how itwas used. Also, it is frustrating tonot be able to invoke LOOKUP from

REVIEW. 1 spend many minuteslooking up words in my old Web­ster's so 1'11 know if the word shouldbe marked or added to the user dic­tionary. (Note, The Word's new ver­sion, announced at the ComputerFaire lets you use LOOKUP and en­ter corrections while reviewing sus­pect words, and it will display thewords in context-rates a 5 in thiscategory. However, The Word Plus,as this extended version is called,costs $150.00. The original Word isstill available for $75.)

Meanwhile, 5pell presents a trueupper/lower case display of thequestioned word which helps a lot.Was the word 'TI' (Texas Instru­ments) or 'ti' (it backwards)? 5pellalso forces me to go to Webster's be­fore adding questionable words toits dictionary. In fact the conse­quences of adding an incorrect wordto the 5pell dictionary are worsethan for The Word.

The Word keeps the user addi­tions in a separate, plain-languagefile that 1can go back and edit at any

time. 50 if 1 goof and add an incor­rect word, 1 can remove it. 5pell in­corporates any new words into thehash table so there is no way to re­view the words 1 have added andthere is no way to remove a word.

VersatilityHere, The Word really shines.

WORDFREQ, WC, FIND, andLOOKUP are aIl very useful func­tions that are only available in TheWord. Plus, each of the functions is aseparate program which means youcan use them individually.

Priee/PerformanceCompared with $200.00 or more

for less adequate performers, both ofthese packages qualify as the realbargains in spelling software.

Disk space requirement1 like to keep spelling software on

line aIl the time, so size is significant.(If it's not there 1 tend not to use itwhen 1 should.) The Word is defi­nitely larger, so if you are using only

Utilities

Dictionary size 45,000 + words, 138K bytes.

Word storage Complete words in alphabetical order (wordsnot separated into roots, prefixes, and suffixes).

Word display Words are displayed as aIl capitals (one areawhere The Word is not as user-friendly as SpeIl).

Descriptions

DICTSORT file.extAlphabetizes file.ext so it can be used as a dictionary or

mark source.FIND tr??

Returns aIl four-leUer words beginning with tr.LOOKUP mispeled

Returns dictionary words similar to word specified (in thiscase would retum 'misspeIled').MARK text.fil

Marks misspelled words in text.fil (prepends an *). Anyaiphabetically ordered file can be a source of words to mark.REVIEW

Takes words from the error file and lets you choose tothrow them away, use them to mark the text file, or updateuser dictionary.SPELL text.fil

(1) Check words against standard dictionary. (2) Checkwords against user dictionary(ies). (3) List words to screen,file, printer (any or aIl). (4) Can ignore lines beginning with aperiod or colon. (5) Can ignore words with aIl capitalletters(VERY handy if your copy includes listings).WC text.fil

Counts the number of words in text.fil.WORDFREQ text.fil

Lists the unique words in text.fil and indicates the numberof times each is used. It also counts the total words, theunique words, and the number of words which occur onlyonce. The list can be done in alphabetical order.

compressedABACK3NDON7ING7MENT

Oasis Systems2765 Reynard WaySan Diego, CA 92103Priee: $75.00

DICTSORT .COM 2KFIND .COM 1KLOOKUP .COM 2KMAINDICT .CMP 139KMARK .COM 2KREVIEW .COM 2KSPELL .COM 3KWC .COM 1KWORDFREQ.COM 2KTOTAL 154K

Compression schemenormalABACKABANDONABANDONINGABANDONMENT

TheWord

6 Micro Cornucopia, Number 5, April 1982

Comparison Table

ConclusionIf 1 were to purchase a spelling

program today it would certainly beone of these. If 1had double density,and did crosswords, the choicewould be The Word, hands down. If1 had one or two drives, single den­sity, and used the program only oc­casionally then 1 would lean towardSpell.

SpeedSpell checked a 5K text file in 27

seconds fin ding 14 suspects, itchecked a 52K file in 131 secondsfinding 167 suspects. The Wordchecked the 5K file in 63 secondsfinding 5 suspects, and it checkedthe 52K file in 108 seconds finding148 suspects.

There were 12 incorrect words inthe 52K file; both found aIl 12.

one or two single-density drives,space is a real consideration.

Dictionary expansionBoth spelling packages make it

easy for you to expand the numberof words they will recognize. TheWord lets you add words to youheart's content. The only penalty isthat the user dietionary grows as youadd words. (My user dictionary isonly 3K-about a hundred words­so that doesn't appear to be much ofa problem.)

Spell has somewhat limited ex­pandability because of the trade-offbetween the size of the dietionaryand the accuracy. Also, Spelldoesn' t let you review or removewords you've added to the diction­ary.

Roots vs whole wordsBy storing only the roots in its die­

tionary, Spell gains a real size ad­vantage over standard spelling rou­tines. Also, Spell gives you theadvantage of only having to enter aword into its dietionary once. Youwon't see 'involvement' and 'involv­ing' as errors after entering 'in­volve'. On the other hand, Spell willnot detect incorrect use of prefixes orsuffixes (The Word will).

Word355354

Spell435534

l=POOR3=GOOD5=EXCELLENT

User friendlinessVersatilityPriee/PerformanceDisk space requiredDietionary ExpansionSpeed

•••

Spell's Data Compression

Spell adds a ward ta the dictionary byhashing it (using its characters ta calcu­late a number) and using the number asthe address of a bit in the dictionary(table). That bit is set ta one.

This hashing is done six more times,each time using a different function tacalculate an address, and each time set­ting the addressed bit ta one (even if thebit had been set ta one by a previouslyentered ward).

The program then checks a wardagainst the dictionary by hashing theward with the seven functions and thenverifying that the seven bits addressedare ones. If any are zeros, then Spellchecks ta see if it can strip off any pre­fixes or suffixes. If sa, it goes through thehash routine again, if not, it reports theward as an error.

Of course, as more and more wordsare added to the dictionary, it begins tafill with ones. As this happens it be­cornes more likely that all seven hashcodes generated by a misspelled wordwill point to ones. The manual reportsthat Spell will miss approximately 2.2 er­rors for every thousand errors it finds. IfYOll add a thousand additional words tathe dictionary the miss rate will increaseta 2.9 per thousand errors.

For more information about the hash­ing technique see Knuth, Vol. 3 of TheArt of Computer Programming, 561-562,and Bloom, Communications of the ACM,13 (1970), 422-426.

Utilities

Dictionary size 50,000 + wards, 30K bytes.

Word storage 18,500 root words plus common prefixes andsuffixes (user extendable).

Word display Words are displayed in both upper and lowercase, just as they appear in the file.

AFFIXTAB.SPLThis is the table of prefixes and suffixes. You can modify it

with a standard text editor if you want to add or remove anyappendages.DICTNARY.SPL

This is the hash table that cornes with Spell. Using Spell,you can add words to this table or create a whole new table ofyourown.SPELL file.txt

Spell checks words against the dictionary and creates analphabeticallist of the words not found. This list can go to afile, to the screen, ta the printer, or the list can be displayedfor user selection.

The user selection (almost identical to REVIEW andMARK above) lets you (M)ark the word in file. txt, (I)gnorethe word, (A)dd the word to the dictionary, or add theword's (R)oot to the dictionary.

Spell marks a word in the text file by replacing the lastcharacter with a # (or other specifiable character). You canuse DDT to change Spell's defaults or you can change themon the command line.

DescriptionsThe Software Toolworks14478 Glorietta DrSherman Oaks, CA 91423

Priee: $49.00

AFFIXTAB .SPL lKDICTNARY.SPL 30KSPELL .COM 13KTOTAL 44K

Compression scheme Seven-function hash coding (see thedata compression box for more information).

Spell

Micro Carnucopia, Number 5, April 1982 7

WORD PROCESSING

Smartkey Scribble, A Text FormatterReview by Patti Morris

409 SE 21stPortland, OR 97214

Smartkey is a simple CP/M com­patible utility which lets you rede­fine any of the characters your key­board can produce. This softwarecan not only translate charactersone-for":'one like 'Translating YourKeyboard' (Issue #4, page 6) but itcan also translate a single characterinto a character string. Once loaded,Smartkey remains active until ter­minated by a companion utilitycalled Fixkey or until you hit the re­set switch (it uses 4K in high mem­ory).

For typesetting, Smartkey is a life­saver. We bought the Big Board toprovide backup for our typesettingfront-end (a Quadex).

The Quadex uses lots of characterand function keys and they have tobe touch-typist accessible. Webought a fancy Microswitch key­board, with a lot of keys but the keyoutputs were not what we needed ataIl.

Now with Smartkey, we can setup the Microswitch keyboard on theBig Board to match the keyboard onthe Quadex. Because many of thecharacters that the Quadex uses arecontrol characters which lie betweenOOH and 20H (and the BB doesn'tprint these), we translate these keysinto displayable strings.

For instance, the key which nor­mally generates a 19H on theQuadex keyboard (causes the type­setter to do a "quad left") gets trans­lated into the string"{ql}". Later,the Quadex changes the "{ql}" backinto 19H before the file goes to thetypesetter.

Smartkey lets you redefine a keyany time, even without getting outof an editor, etc. To start a definition,hit the key you've defined as"KEYDEF", then the key you wantto redefine, followed by the charac­ters that key will become and finally,enter hit "KEYDEF" again to termi­nate the definition. If you hit"KEYDEF" twice to begin a defini­tion then the key ),rou are redefiningtakes on the HEX equivalent of thecharacters which follow.

Fixkey lets you view the present

(continued next column)

8

By David Thompson

Scribble is an extraordinarily ver­satile text formatter. In fact, it doesso many things that 1 could fill thismagazine with this review alone.

When 1 looked through the 100+page manual, my first thought wasthat it would be months before l'd beprinting justified lines, bold facecharacters, underlines, footnotes,pageheadings, and so on.

However, despite its long list ofcommands (called environmentsand directives) and deluxe giant sizemanual, it has an incredibly nice setof defaults. Scribble will takestraight text and turn it into square­looking justified paragraphs.

A blank line tells Scribble that youwant a new paragraph. And, if youadd a half dozen simple commands,you get bold face, centered titles,underlined characters, ragged right,or whatever.

ThemanualYou probably know by now that 1

am a sucker for friendly manuals.WeIl, there are places in this one thatare absolutely delightful. Don't tellanyone but it's obvious that there isa rabid wit chained somewhere deepin their dungeon.

The manual's before-and-afterfiles showing the commands and theresults are better reading than an oldMAD magazine.

However, the manual will requiresorne serious reading because nomatter how friendly it is or howgood the defaults, you still need asolid understanding of this complexand powerful tool, and that will takesorne time and experience. 1 havebeen using Scribble regularly now

(Smartkey continued)

key definitions or save them on disk.Another utility (called Install) helpsyou set up Smartkey for special ter­minaIs and inquires whether yourkeyboard can generate 8-bit charac­ters. If so it will reset the 8th bit foryou.

(continued on page 12)

for about 3 months and 1still go backoften to the examples and the quickreference section.

PrintersScribble understands many print­

ers inc1uding: Epson MX-80 and 100,Diablo, NEC, IDS, and Centronics.Plus you can set it up for just aboutanything else that makes marks onpaper. The setup is menu driven soit is not difficult.

Example outputThe E.C.R.L. ad in this issue was

formatted by Scribble.

ConclusionScribble is probably the best deal

in a full service stand-alone text for­matter. It handles proportionalspace fill, proportional print wheels,underlining, inserting names inform letters, centering, bold face,page headings, page footings, su­perscripts, subscripts, footnotes,numbering (chapters, sections, andsubsections) and so on. It will waitfor you to feed single sheets if you'dlike and it will let you enter materialinto a printout directly from the key­board.

Scribble is available for $175 from:

Mark of the UnicornPO Box 423Arlington, MA 02174

Note: Mark of the Unicorn also produces atext editor called Mince. Mince is a VERYfaney editor with a Word Star size list ofcom­mands. l don't use Mince because l like towrite in silence (the disk drive motors off) andMince continually accesses the disk (itdoesn't keep the text file in memory). Mince isalso perceptibly slow at doing certain com­mands such as long rubouts.

However, Mince's features greatly out­weigh its slow response time for a number offolks l know. In fact, many who have triedWord Star, Vedit, and Mince have stayedwith Mince.

You can buy Mince for $175 directly fromMark of the Unicorn, or you can buy Mincefrom SuperSoft (they have renamed it Star­Edit) for $225. It's the same thing with thesame manual.

•••Micro Cornucopia, Number S, April 1982

ENCLOSURESFour piece high-impact thermoplastic enclosure con­sisting of base, keyboard mounting plate, shroud andtinted plexiglas screen. Can be cut and drilled withordinary hand tools. Ample room inside for a BigBoard, keyboard, power supply, 12" monitor, and amini-floppy disk drive. Lots of ventilation holes with aspace for mounting a 4" muffin fan. Available withblank keyboard panel or precut for Cherry PRO andauxilliary keyboards. PLEASE SPECIFY.Color-Blue. SIZE: 21" D x 19" W x 16" H.

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MONITORSThese 12" Motorola monitors provide sharp, cleancharacters in an 80 x 24 format. Wide 15 Mhz band­width with 800 line resolution, excellent geometryand separate video and sync inputs. Open frame de­sign. Requires 12 VDC at 1.2 amps.

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SUPER SAVINGSENCLOSURE, MONITOR AND PANEL - $235 plus $9 shipping

OCTATRACEThis dandy little gadget will make just about anyscope display 8 channels of TTL level signais. Invalu­able for troubleshooting computers. Bandwidth isgreater than 3 MHz. Power supplied by circuit undertest. Kit includes P.C. board, case, decal and compre­hensive manual with parts list.

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FORTHwordsA column by Arne A-. Henden 7415 Leahy Road

New Carrollton, MD 20784& Hampton B. Miller P.o. Box 816

Carpinteria, CA 93013

In this column, 1 will presentsorne simple benchmarks forFORTH systems and continue thereviews. As an addition, you willfind a simple timer designed aroundthe Z-80 CTC. Version 1 of UNI­FORTH (renamed from HART­FORTH) is now available. (See ad.)

From here on, Hampton Millerwill be helping me with this column.Hampton is a long-time FORTHerand has different opinions on manysubjects. He should be a good com­plement for the column.

Hampton Miller writes:My first encounter with FORTH,

or at least with its close relativeSTOIC, was around 1977 throughthe auspices of the late DigitalGroup. What an incredible salesspiel they gave! Why, if one were tobelieve the daims, aIl of the systemssoftware usually associated with mytrade (text editors, compilers, link­age editors, even the operating sys­tem itself) could be replaced by asmall kernel and sorne machine in­dependent extensions. To this 1could add anything 1needed to suitthe situation.

1 was unimpressed, however,having dealt with religious fanaticsbefore. 50, forgetting this foolish­ness, 1applied myself to slaving overa machine language monitor which 1never finished. Years later, the Au­gust 1980 BYTE showed me the errorof my ways and commuted my sen­tence.

Today, 1 use FORTH to quicklyand conveniently verify algorithmswhich may then be coded in C orsorne other language, even (shud­der!) assembly language.

Since 1971 1 have been a systemsintegrator for the State of California;Digital Equipment Corporation(DEC); and original equipment man­ufacturers (OEMs), induding theHeath Company.

1work and live in an environmentof PDP-11s, VAXs, and microproc­essors. My software tools are aIlwritten in FORTH, and 1 havebrought the FORTH InterestGroup's FIG-FORTH up under sev­eral operating systems and process­ors. When 1 encounter a new proc­essor, 1 just buy the FORTH listingfor it from FIG and move my toolsover.

One of the most important aspectsof FORTH, as a complete softwaresystem, is that it can be completelyunderstood by one person. This is afar cry from the jungle of operatingsystems and software developmentsystems in use today.

The hard part is getting it up forthe first time. 1 assembled FIG­FORTH for the PDP-11 under theRT-11 operating system after rewrit­ing the terminal and disk Il0 rou­tines for stand-alone (bye, bye RT­11!) operation. 1 also replaced theDEC bootstrap on the disk with myown which just loads memory fromthe first 56 FORTH blocks, restoresthe stack pointer and returns to itscaller (think about it).

50, 1runFORTH underRT-11, ex­ecute a FORTH routine which savesthe machine state (induding thestack pointer), copies aIl of memoryout to the disk (skipping the bootblock!), restores the machine state,and voila! 1am the proud owner of astand-alone FORTH system!

Similar things can be done for the

Big Board under a friend' s CP lM.My special thanks to Butler W.Lampson and Robert F. Sproull fortheir excellent paper, 1An Open Op­erating System for a Single-UserMachine'. (See the Proceedings ofthe Seventh Symposium on Operat­ing Systems Principles, publishedby the Special Interest Group onOperating Systems (SIGOPS) of the

ACM. -kf.amfItrrv

FORTH benchmarksEach attempt to present bench­

marks is controversia1. My use ofFORTH benchmarks has been tocompare different processors forspeed and ease of use. Benchmarksalso show up the relative merits ofdifferent algorithms.

You must realize that any imple­mentation of FORTH makes trade­offs between speed and memoryconservation. FIG-FORTH uses avery small kernel of machine lan­guage routines, and builds aIl otherroutines upon these. This makesconverting to other processors sim­pIe. Other versions such as SL5 andGSFC use many more machine lan­guage definitions.

My feeling is that the 10 to 20 per­cent speed advantages are usuallyoutweighed by increased complex­ity and size.

The benchmarks labelled Tlthrough T17 show the speed ofFORTH implementations for basicarithmetic operations. The timefound for each test was divided bythe number of iterations to deter­mine the time per loop. Then thetime for the loop structure (Tl orT11) is subtracted to obtain the time

( input 2.113)( input 2.113)input 2.113)( input 2.113)

( input 2.113)

SCR Il 1o ( FORTH benchmark tests -- 1••• integer functions)1 ( Run each function with noted input. Then divide by)2 ( the number of iterations. Finally, subtract the time)3 ( of T1 or T11 from each time. A. Henden 1982)4 : T1 30000 0 DO LOOP ;5 : T2 30000 0 DO l + l - LOOP; (use 1 for input)6 : T3 10001 1 DO l * l 1 LOOP j (use 1 for input)7 0 VARIABLE W8 : T4 30000 0 DO W @W 1 LOOP j

9 : T5 30000 0 DO WC@ W CI LOOP ,10 : T6 30000 0 DO 3, D+ LOOP; (use 3, for input)11 --i121314 Figure 1. FORTH screens15

10

SCR fi 2o ( FORTH benchmark tests -- 2••• floating functions)1 : T7 10000 0 DO FLOAT FIX LOOP; (input 2113,)2 : T8 10000 0 DO 2.5 2.5 F* 2DROP LOOP ;3 : T9 10000 0 DO 2.5 1.2 FI 2DROP LOOP ;4 : T10 10000 0 DO 2.5 2.5 F+ 2DROP LOOP ;5 : T11 1000 0 DO 2DUP 2DROP LOOP ;6 : T12 1000 0 DO 2DUP SQRT 2DROP LOOP j

7 : T13 1000 0 DO 2DUP LOG10 2DROP LOOP ;8 : T14 1000 0 DO 2DUP EXP 2DROP LOOP; (9 : T15 1000 0 DO 2DUP ATAN 2DROP LOOP ;

10 : T16 1000 0 DO 2DUP SIN 2DROP LOOP11 : T17 101 1 DO l BLOCK DROP LOOP ;12 ;S131415

Micro Cornucopia, Number 5, April 1982

• = hardware assistance from 2 MHz 9511$ = hardware assistance from FP-llaIl times except T17 in microseeonds, adjusted to 4MHz CPU (A&B)

A Hardware Software TimerMost Big Board owners have by

now purchased a CTC for theirboard. Listed in screen 3 are sornemachine-language words to use theCTC for timing software routines.These routines are written for UNI­FORTH, but are easily converted forZ-SO FORTH. The interrupt handleris in machine language to be as fastas possible.

CTC#O is set in the timer mode tointerrupt every 0.009946 seconds.The variable KNTR is used to countclock ticks. STIMER clears KNTRand sets CTC#O to the proper mode.Routine $INCR does the actual in­crementing on each clock tick. Ittakes about 30 microseconds foreach interrupt, or less than one per­cent of the CPU time. ETIMER takesKNTR, scales it by the lost time dueto $INCR, and prints the final value.

To use these words, load theblock. Call STIMER before the loopto be timed, and ETIMER after the

for the operations inside the loop.These tests are shown in Figure 1,and the results are given in Table 1.

It's remarkable how similar mostFORTHs are! You will gain more byoptimizing Y0uf application thantrying to choose the fastest FORTH.

Implementation NotesZ-SO FORTH: The software con­

versions and F+ are remarkably fast!In my review, 1mentioned that youshould define floating point valuesas constants if they are to be usedwithin loops. For TS-no, not usingconstants slows the times down by afactor of 4 from those shown in thetable.

Timin FORTH: The disk access isagain long on the Big Board becauseof timing problems with the 3-sectorskewing scheme. A 4MHz systemwould presumably be much faster.Tll time is long because Timin de­fines 2DROP as a colon word.

URTH: Note that though this ver­sion uses the 9511, times are slightlyslower than L. S. Z-SO: SOSO interfac­ing was used instead of the multi­1/0 instructions of the Z-SO. Usingthe 9511 for integer multiply and di­vide speeds T3 up by 3.3x over theFIG model. However, double preci­sion addition using the 9511 (T6) isslower than doing it in software!

SL5: Very few extensions areavailable for this version and so tableentries are slim. Note however, thatT3 is fast! Stackworks has used theZilog algorithms for multiply and di­vide, utilizing the Z-SO efficiently.

UNIFORTH: The disk access timeis short because the routines havebeen optimized for the Big Board.One novel feature of this FORTH is

that the skewing factor is user ad­justable and therefore can be op­timized for other systems. Note thatwith proper optimization, you canperform multiply/divide faster thaninterfacing with the 9511!

GSFC FORTH: This is included todemonstrate the speed advantagesof a mid-sized minicomputer. Youget an Sx advantage on most opera­tions, with 30x on integer multiplyldivide and SOx on basic floatingpoint operations because of thehardware support. Tests T12-T16are only 3x faster than the 9511, be­cause they are performed insoftware on the PDP-11/44.

ROM FORTH: This test was onversion 1.0. It showed no bugs andtypical FIG-FORTH times.

T17: This test demonstrates sorneof the problems with benchmarking.Each version of FORTH works wellon the system used to develop thelanguage. On other systems, proc­essor speeds and head load/seektimes can dramatically change theresult.

Table 1. FORTH benchmarksL.S. L.S. Timin URTH

Test A B B ATl 63 61 73 57T2 123 119 129 97T3 3430 3240 3340 1054·T4 105 101 100 83T5 99 97 96 90T6 114 107 119 242·T7 803· 620 3910 920·T8 717· 3910 2460 840·T9 800· 4950 3690 1000·Tl0 660- 790 1890 790·TIl 136 137 220 100T12 632· 39560 890-T13 2700· 2900-T14 2500· 2900·T15 3010· 3100-T16 2290· 2400·T17 41s 141s 137s 37s

UNIF SL5B B69 96

127 131741 1400100 11796 111

117

133 162

33s

(continued next page)

GSFC ROMC B7 73

14 12736 334621 10024 9619 11931$56$51$42$17 150

292$1065$975$

1323$685$

5.5s 139s

SCR # 3o (Hardware/software CTC timer, using CTCIO) HEX1 0 VARIABLE KNTR (0.01 scond tick counter)2 SUBROUTINE $INCR (interrupt handler, incrs KNTR)3 (takes 77 clocks or 31 usec @ 2.5 MHz)4 HL PUSH, KNTR) HL LD, HL INC, HL KNTR ) LD,5 HL POP, El, RETI, END-CODE6 : STIMER (start timer by loading CTC command:)7 (A7=timer mode, 256 scale, autorun•• 97 ticks before)8 (interrupt,=.0099331 sec/tiek for 2.5Mhz cloek)9 0 KNTR ! OA7 18 Pl 61 18 P! j

la ETIMER (end timer, scale and print result)11 23 18 PI KNTR @ 3E3 3E8 ( 995/1000) ./ 012 =# # # 2E HOLD #5 #i TYPE." seconds" CR ;13 $INCR OFF10! (move intr. routine adr to CTC veetor)14 DECIMAL ;515

Micro Cornucopia, Number 5, April 1982

Versions BenchmarkedL.S. z-80 FORTH: version 1.14 Oct 1981Timin FORTH: version 3 Oct 1981URTH: Astrojek version (Ind. Univ.) Oct 1981UNIFORTH: version 1.6 Feb 1982SL5: version 1.2 Mar 1980GSFC FORTH: version 2.3 (RSX-llM) Dec 1981ROM: MicroC ROM FORTH version 1.0 Feb 1982

Benchmarking systemsA: IMSAI 5-100. 4 MHz Z-80, 4 MHz memory, 2 MHz 9511,

Persei voiee-eoil dual floppy drives.B: Big Board. 2.5 MHz Z-80, 2.5 MHz memory, Siemens floppy

drives using 1771 eontroller.C: PDP-l1/44. 10MHz CPU with FP-11 floating point proeessor,

RL02 10M byte hard disk drives.

Il

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per moduleinteractive-per module

I.S.A. Spellguard (spelling checker)Ithaca Intersystems Pascal ZKey Bits Wordsearch (spelling checker)"Lexisoft Spellbinder (ward processor)Microtax Level 1 (fed./individual)

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Micro ProWORDSTAR (most popular word processor)MAILMERGEWORDSTAR/MAILMERGEDATA STAR (data entry, ret. & update)WORDMASTER (text editor)SUPERSORT 1 (sort/merge)SPELLSTAR (spell check/dict.)CALCSTAR (electronic spread sheet)

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SupercalcStructured Systems per moduleSupersoft

DIGNOSTIC II (hardware checker)FORTH (specify Z80 or 8080)SSS FORTRANRATFOR (language enhancer Fortran)SUPER M-LIST (mail list program)TINY PASCALDISK DOCTOR (lost data recovery)UTILITIES 1 or IISTAR EDIT (text editor)NEMESISDUNGEON MASTERANALIZAANALIZA II

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(FORTHwords continued)

loop execution. Simple as pie! Thetimer words are extremely useful inchecking out different algorithmspeeds, such as FIG's multiply rou­tine versus Zilog's routine.

(Smartkey continued)

If you need to use the 8th bit onthe Big Board then use the followingmod suggested by Nick Hammondof FBN. Use DDT to load Smartkeyand then do the following:

FBN Software1111 Sawmill Gulch RoadPebble Beach, CA 93953

• ••

The manual is a little confusing,but most everything you need toknow is there somewhere and thescreen cues help a lot. If you need toredefine keys on the fly or turn sin­gle keystrokes into whole strings,you need Smartkey-it's a verygood friend.

Smartkey is available for $39.00from:

NextissueBy now, you should now be able

to make an intelligent FORTH pur­chase. My suggestion is to get one ofthe three inexpensive versions­ROM FORTH, UNIFORTH or Z80FORTH-as aIl three are good sys­tems. ROM is necessary if you don'thave disk drives, the other two ver­sions offer many options.

Next issue, we will concentrateheavily on applications. For exam­pIe, 1 have a whole set of words tocontrol the MX-80 printer, and alsoto make the Big Board function as aterminal.

Hampton will review UNIFORTHand ROM FORTH, and 1 am work­ing on sorne additional applications.Any questions? Just ask!

•••

Designer'sCorner

Those who have MicrosoftBasic and a CTC timer can starttheir pseudo-random numbergenerator at a truly pseudo-ran­dom place by using the follow­ing:

nn RANDOMIZEPEEK(&HFF6C)

Location FF6C is the disk ac­tivity timer. If the disk motor isstill running, the value will bebetween 0 and 30. Otherwise,the timer free runs and the valuewill be between 0 and 255.

John P. Jones5826 Southwest Ave.St. Louis, MO 63139

LocOA64OA87(OA8A)(OA8B)

FromJZOA7CCALLOA94

ToJZ OA87LDAOBF3NOPNOP

12 Micro Cornucopia, Number S, April 1982

UNIFORTHYou've heard about FORTH's interactiveness, speed and versatility. NOWHERE'S YOUR CHANCE TO OWN THE BEST! UNIFORTH is a stand-aloneFORTH for the Big Board. No operating system is needed - - save yourbucks for more important purchases - - but if you have CP lM, there is autility available for file transfer.

UNIFORTH is FORTH-79 standard, with the double precision integer anda s sembler extensions. Don 't get stuck with the 128 -byte "blacks" and slowdisk access of fig-FORTH! All code is FULLY OPTIMIZED for the Z-80,and all Big Board devices are supported, such as the CTC for listings withdate and time. Included with UNIFORTH are:

- AlI SOURCE CODE except for a 5K byte kernel, so you can easilymodify the system. The kerne1 source will be available in Juneas part of the Programmer' s Manual.

- An interactive CURSOR-ADDRESSED EDITOR (the best around!).Others charge the price of UNIFORTH for just this a10ne. Allkeystroke commands are logical, and include string search andreplacement, even across block boundaries. Forget a command?Just inspect the omnipresent Inenu.

- Full Z-80 ASSEMBLER, using Zilog InneInonics, with cOInpletelylogical syntax; and it supports the undocuInented index registerinstructions.

- Full IEEE-compatable single-precision FLOATING POINT software.Eight-bit signed exponents yield Inore range than the AMD-9511.AlI functions are included, such as sines, cosines and 10garithIns.COInpare with the other FORTHs and see the difference!

- A 136-page USER'S MANUAL. Broken into logical function divi­sions, it includes Inany exaInples and leads you step-by-stepthrough the learning process.

Pricing:Version l (without floating point) $50Version 2 (with floating point) $85

Own Version 1? You can upgrade to Version 2 for only $35. AlI versionsdistributed on IBM 3740 standard eight-inch single-density floppy disk.Postage is prepaid within the continental U. S.

UNISOFTP. O. Box 2644New Carrollton, MD 20784(301) 552-1295

~---III A NewType of Game E....- ........~iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiili'

Welcome to an astonlshing new experience! ADVENTURE is one of themost challenging and Innovatlve games available for your personalcomputer. This is not the average computer game ln whlch you shoot at,chase, or get chased by something, master the game within an hour, andthen lose interest. In fact, it may take you more than an hour to score at ail,and will probably take days or weeks of playlng to get a good score. (Thereis a provision for saving a game ln progress).

The original computer version of Adventure was wrilten by WllIIeCrowther and Don Woods in Fortran on aPDP-10 at MIT. ln this version theplayer starts near a small wellhouse. Upon entering the house, he flndsfood, water, a set of keys and a lamp. Armed wlth only these items, hemustset out to explore the countryside ln search of treasure and otherobjects ofplay. He must also confront dwarfs, snakes, trolls, bears, dragons, blrds,and olher creatures during his quest. The game accepts one-or two-wordcommands such as GET LAMP* SOUTH" or KILL DWARF. Of course, ifyou don't have the propertool to carry oui an action, or ifyou do somethingfoolish, you may find yourself in big trouble.

ln playing the game you wander thru various 'rooms' (locations),manipulating the objects there to try to find 'treasures'. Vou may have todefeat an exotic wiid animal to get one treasure, or figure out how to getanother treasllre out of a quicksand bog. Vou communlcate thru two-wordcommands such as 'go west', 'cllmb tree', 'throw axe', 'look around'.

duentureBIG BOARDSOFTWARE!

ORIGINAL ADVENTURE (by Crowther, Woods, Manning andRoichei) - Somewhere nearby is a collosal cave where others havefound fortunes in treasures and gold, but somewho have entered havenever been seen again. Vou start at a small brick building which is thewellhouse for a large spring. Vou must try to flnd your way Into theunderground caverns where you'lI meet a giant clam, nasty Iittledwarves, and much more. This Adventure Is BI-Lingual - you mayplay in either Eng/lsh or French - a language learning tool beyondcomparison. Runs in 32K CP/M system (48K required forSAVE GAMEfeature). Even Includes SAM76 language in whlch to run the game.The troll says "Good Luck."

THROUGH SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT WITH CREATIVECOMPUTING WE ARE ABLE TO OFFER ONEOFTHE MOSTCHALLENGING AND EXCITING COMPUTER GAMES EVERDEVISED. BESIDES BEING FUN, WE HAVE FOUND THATRUNNING "ADVENTURE" IS ONE OF THE BEST TESTSFOR A BIG BOARD. SUPPLIED ON 8 IN. DISKETTE WITHINSTRUCTIONS.

$2995(AOO $2.00 POSTAGE)

Digital Research Computers(OF TEXAS)

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

TERMS: Add $2.00 postage. We pay balance. Order under $15 add 754:handling. No. C.O.D. We accept Visa and MasterCharge. Te~. Res. add 5%Tax. Foreign orders (excepl Canada) add 20% P & H. Orders over $50. add854: for insurance.

Tiny Basic In ROMFrom Micro C

OK, OK, 1 know what you'rethinking. 1 swear on a stack ofTRASH-SO's that l'm not revertingback to basics.

However, I really like Tiny Basic.Ifs perfect for those simple littlecontroller or utility projects thatmight call object code routines. Forthe small stuff, you really can't beatthis for getting something out fast.Commercial outfits have found thatwriting small utilities and controllersin Tiny Basic is between 10 and 20times faster than writing them in as­sembly code. And, you don't needCP lM, even ifyou are storing data orprogram on disk. (And, of course,you don't have to have a disk.)

Catch a load of this.1. It can read one or more Basic pro­grams off the disk, append them to­gether, and run them aIl.2. It can, of course, also store Basicprograms on the disk using its own

($35.00)

simple disk format.3. It can store object code onto thedisk and then read it back (into a re­served memory area).4. It also looks at the 3rd ROM sock­et for a 2716 containing code. If thereis a ROM there, its contents get load­ed into a protected memory area.This can be object code, called byTiny Basic to do high speed assem­bly language functions.5. Plus sorne other little goodies thatyou wouldn't expect from Tiny Basic(like a simple renum routine).6. And best of aIl, the whole thingfits into two 2716's that can settleright in next to the PFM 3.3 ROM.

This doesn't have fancy fIoatingpoint numbers or long variablenames but it's certainly useful anddefinitely fun. (Did I say fun? Sssh!Don't tell!) Rob Devoe did the modi­fication for the BB and added the ex­tra goodies. • ••

WANTADSThe following folks are reaching you foronly 20 cents per word. If you wouldIike to reach the same audience, sendyour words and 20 cents for each, to Mi­cro Comucopia, 11740 NW West Rd.,Portland, OR 97229.

WANTED-EPROMS's for non-dise BigBoard. Dumb terminal to 510. Minimalletter writer to PlO, Kansas City or TRS­80 cassette. Tom Mason, 2402 AudubonRoad, Akron, OH 44320,216-575-5647.

Printer program to drive NEC 5515Spinwriter, incIudes details of minor se­riai interface hardware modifications.$30.00Professionally made, walnut grain for­mica computer cabinet holds two 8-inchdisk drives and Sunny InternationalPower Supply. Has heavy aluminumback panel with cutouts for ten RS232'sand whisper fan. Real Walnut Trim. FOBRedondo Beach. $400.00Custom Formica Walnut Grain Key­board Enclosures, (send eut-out patternand detailed drawings of keyboard)$200.00

LAMAR INSTRUMENTS2107 Artesia Blvd.Redondo Beach, CA 90278(213) 374-1673

12" GREEN HALL BROTHERS NONITOR WITIIr::1CLOSURE Hr.ASU~ING 19"x16.5"x14".~oml mSIJI: TD HOUNT A FERGUSOl~ SmGLEBOIRD COH!'UTER OR mL\LL SS-50,S-100SYSTD-I. POWER SUPPLY AVAILABLE BELOW.REQUIRES +15 VOLTS nc. @ 1.5 !lMPS, NON­COMPOSITE (SEPERATE SYNe) INPUT. ASYNe SEPERATOR SClI[MATlC IS AVAILABLE.II 15 ALsa POSSIBLE rD HaUNT A SINGLE8" DISK DRIve OR !WO OF THE NEW SLIHLINE a" DrSK DRIVES IN THIS ENCLOSURL.ALL UNITS ARE VSEO 1 AND HAVE BEI::N 100:;;TESTED.

MODULAR POWER SUPPLY (MIsSrNG REGULATOR CARO)Flrs TNSIDE ABOVE MONITOR ENCLOSURE. INCLUDESLARGE TRANSFORMER THAT OUTPUTS +3.5 VOLTS @17 AMPS,+/- 18 VOLTS @ 1.5 AMPS EACH, +15VOLTS Q 1.5 AMPS (FOR HONITOR) THREE LARGECAPACITORS (l-18kuf,2-8kuf), 1-30 AMr, 2-3AMP BRIDGE REeTIFIERS. THE TRANSFORMER ANDRECTIFIERS/CAPACITORS MAKE A PERFECT UNRZG­ULATED 55-50/5-100 POWER SUPPLY. THE SCHEMATICFOR THE REGULATOR CARD IS AVAILABLE AND THISSUPPLY caULD BE MODIFIED TD RUN THE FERGUSOi.>IBDARD,MONITOR , AND 2-8" DISK DRIVES.

le SDCKET SETS SDON Ta BE AVAlLABLE WILLlNCLUDE ALL NECESSARY saCKETS AND "EADERS.

SHIPPING WEIGHT 25j,! ••••••••••••••••• $25.00

OTHER COODIES:2114-300ns STArIe MEMORY ••• ql$8, 8/$16, 16/$30, 20/$35, 32/$50, 64/$95,100+/1.40e

4116-200n. DYNA.~IC MEMORY 8/$16, 16/$30, 25/$45, 32/$48. 64/$90.100+/1.30.

TEXT QUALlTY PRINTERS, RS232, formed character daisy wheel type PEm<:lN EUfTIR

You're different. And C may be the program­ming language you've been looking for.

To get you interested, we sell a simple compilercalled Small-C for only $19.95. If you need morefeatures, try our excellent CW/C@ compiler forjust $49.95. (It supports a surprisingly largesubset of C.) And if you would like to have thecomplete source code for a great C compiler,then O/C for $95 is what you need. Ali thesecompilers run under CP/M-80®.

Write for detailed information. You'lI find thatwe're different tao.CP/M is a trademark of Digital Research.CW/C is a trademark of The Code Works.

CAROUSEL 350, OR DIABLO HYTYPE L ••.••••.•• $ 899.00 CALL FOR AVAlLABILITY.

D & 101 ASSOClATES , PO BOX 60 , ROME NY. 13440 (15) 339-2232 OR 337-7968

ALL ITEMS SENT VIA urs COD. PLEASE CALL EITHER NUMBEREVENIN"GS ONLY

Micro Cornucopia, Number 5, April 1982

THECODEWORKS

5266 HallisterSuite 224Santa Barbara, CA 93111(805) 683-1585

15

HIGHFOR A

RESOLUTION MONITORLOW RESOLUTION PRieE

SUPER DEALS ON BIG" RESOLUTION TECO MONITORS

Like Leedex or Zenith moni tors, these Teco monitors are complete,ready to connect to the Big Board's composit video output. Unlike theLeedex or the Zenith, however, the top of the line Teco features a 20MHz bandwidth for unmatched resolution and P31 fast green phosphor.This model is crystal sharp even when displaying 132-characters perline.

However, if you insist on a display that our competition can match,we also have standard 15 MHz models wi th ei ther P31 green or B&Wphosphor.

These monitors are regular stock and include a complete money backguarantee. If you have any problems within three months, simply returnthe monitor for exchange or refund.

Also, ask about our quantity discounts on monitors and great priceson Scientific and I-Ching software.

CHECK THESE PRICES20 MHz, green phosphor ••• $13815 MHz, green phosphor ••• $12815 MHz, B&W •••••••••••••• $118

Add $8 for shi~ping & handling.

CAPITAL LIBRARY SERVICEComputers & Peripherals

PO Box 459Greenbelt, Maryland 20110

301-414-1949or

301-414-5346(temp. number)

NORVAC ELECTRON/CS

a-inch SCOTCH DISKSSingle-sided, single-density

Soft-sector 740-0

CASE OF 50 $112.50plus shipping

WE STOCK ALL BIG BOARD PARTSOne day turnaround on U.S. and Foreign Orders

©

12905 S.W. BEAVERDAM ROAD, BEAVERTON, OREGON 97005 TELEPHONE: 503/644-1025

YOU CAN RELY ON QUALITYBIG BOARD ADD-ONS FROM

THE BIG BOARD'S ORIGINALSOFTWARE DESIGNER- RUSSELL

SMITH. SOFTWARE PUBLISHERS'LATEST COLLABORATION PRODUCED AN

EASILY-INSTALLED, ADD-ON DUAL DENSITYBOARD. SPECIFICATIONS:

<=> An assembled and tested Daughter board that replaces the1771, plugging into the 1771 socket, enabling you to runeither single or double density.

<=> Uses a 1791 disk controller plus a field-proven digital dataseparator and write precompensation circuit.

<=> Requires absolutely no Big Board modifications.Runs with 2.5 MHz clock and standard PFM monitor ROM.

1(> Includes a disk that contains:• DDSYSGEN-A double density SYSGEN program• DDINIT -A disk initialization and verification

program. Allows disks to be formattedin ail standard single and doubledensity formats.

<=> Avai lable for 5~" and 8" d rive systems. (5~" DUALDENSITY board includes a 50 to 34 pin cable adapter.)

$250

SOFTWARE PUBLISHERS, INC.2500 E. Randol Mill Rd., Suite 125

Arlington, Texas 76011(817) 469-1551

Double DensityBy David Thompson

One of the big stories around Mi­cro C is, of course, density. No long­er satisfied with being singly dense,folks are lining up to get doublydense.

What is density?WeIl, single density looks at every

couple of transitions and translatesthem into a one or a zero, doubledensity is a way of translating singletransitions (or places where therecould have been transitions) intoones or zeros. The total number oftransitions placed on the disk is thesame, but double density decodingresults in twice the data.

50, you could take a single densityformat of 77 tracks, 26 sectors pertrack and 128 bytes per sector andsimply change the bytes per sector to256. Then you'd have about 480Kbytes of file space per disk instead ofabout 240K.

However, you don' t have to use26 sectors per track There are twoadvantages to using larger sectors.

The most obvious advantage isthat you can get 16-512 byte sectors

or sometimes 9-1024 byte sectorson a track rather than 26-256 bytesectors. Thus you get about 600K perdisk using 512 byte sectors and apossible 670K per disk using 1024byte sectors (file space).

The second advantage to thelarger sector sizes is speed. Oisk 1/0is the slowest part of most opera­tions. 50, reading data off the disk inlarge chunks and then parcelling itout to CP/M 128 bytes at a time(called deblocking), speeds up a sys­tem substantiaIly.

There are three double densitypackages available for the Big Board.

" 1 have one of them running on thissystem (Jim Monesmith's) and 1 amfairly familiar with the other two.HopefuIly, l'Il have a chance to tryout the others so 1can do a real com­parison of aIl three.

1haven't heard any really negativereports about any of the double den­sity boards. l've heard a few grum­bles about the setup time on Otto'sbut the folks seem happy once it isup and running. Monesmithchanged the upper/lower case

switch into a TTY lock and it occa­sionally switches when 1 use myrub-out key. (Since 1have the source

. l'Il get rid of that 'feature' myselfwhen 1get the time.) Russell Smith'sboard might not even work if yoursystem runs faster than 2.5 MHz(you should check with him). Thiswould be unfortunate because the 4MHz modification is so easy andmakes such a dramatic difference insystem speed.

How can you get them?Hiller' s and Smith's boards are

advertised in this issue.Monesmith's board is available

from:Jim Monesmith438 Patterson RoadDayton, Ohio 45419513-298-6926

Note: Double density disks are twiceas heavy as single density only whenthey are full of bits. In a future issue wewill caver use ofhalf-bits (called tid:-bits)ta reduce the weight.

•••

RUN 5'4" Floppy Disk Drives

ON YOUR BIG BOARD IlSINGLE ETCH CUT AND JUMP

INSTRUCTIONS SUPPLIED

(single side-single or double dens'ty)

TANOON MOdel ™ 1OQ.l l$219.95 es

COC Model 9409 ~2 or mot. - S214.g5 "èS.·

Fioppy Drive Power Conncclor Kit. . . $2.00·5 ~." Mcmorex Flop~)y D1sks - singlo s.de softsector. :lInylo or double dcns.ly - Ba- ofla. . .. $2800·

CAll NOW - TOll FREE800-824-7888 ail states except CA.800-852-7777 for CA residenls.Ask lor Operator ~99.

MC/VISA or C.O.O. wlth cert,fied checkor money order. Kansas res,dcnts add3% sales tax.

• Plus shippingFor into cali: 316-683-9225

31 6-685-9445

~~~923 Longfellow Street

Wichita. KS 67207

Micro Cornucopia, Number 5, April 1982

FEATURE HILLER SMITH MONESMITH

DO Sector Size 256-1024 256-1024 512Bytes/Oisk (K) 480-670 480-670 600Extended Monitor Yes No YesParallel Print Yes No YesSeriaI Printer Yes No YesCBIOS source No No YesMonitor source No Yes 1 YesR/W single dens Yes Yes YesAuto Oensity Yes Yes N 0 2

Added utilities3 Yes ? YesSupports 5" ? Yes No4 MHzreq. Yes No YesOther BB mods Yes No YesStartup time 2hrs 2 minutes 30 minutesPrice $200 $250 $175

1. Since Russell Smith is using the present monitor, the source is available. This also means thatmost monitor-dependent software such as prin ter drivers will run unchanged.

2. Monesmith supplies asimple .COM routine for setting or changing the density on aparticu­lar drive. The default for aU drives is double density.

3. Here is where l can't really compare the various systems. Monesmith has added a number ofvery neat features such as automatically searching drive A for any file not on the defaultdriveand automatically returning ta the default drive after a reboot. He has also cured the headbanging which occurs when accessing data on a non-default drive.

19

Especially For The Big BoardFrom Micro C

Your choice of ei ther user' s disk or the deluxecharacter ROM FREE if you send an article orsoftware and a ROM or extra disk.

Screen Editor in Small CA simple but full-function screen text editor plus atext formatter, all written in Small C by EdwardReam. This package includes the editor and formatter.COM files setup for the Big Board, Small C itself,and source code for aIl. Wi th the documentationthis is over 400K on a flippy disk. Edward isselling this package for $50, you can buy it from usfor $39 (and Ed gets a royalty).

MORE HOMSFast monitor ROMs for speed freaks and our famous"better than Texas" character ROM for screenfreaks.

ISSUE 12ParaIleI PrintDD Motor Cont.Shugart Jumpers1/2 PFM.PRN(Much More)

ISSUE 13Four MHz ModsUsing Modem 1Safer FormatterReverse Cursor(Much More)

Other Foreign$20.00$10.00$85.00$20.00$40.00$50.00$44.00$30.00$30.00

$5.00

ISSUE 15Word Proc at Micro CTwo Great SpellsTwo Text EditorsScribble, a Formatter(Much More)

Can, Mex$15.00$65.00$80.00$15.00$35.00$45.00$39.00$25.00$25.00

$3.00

pnc~ ~,

User's disk 01 or #2FORTH in ROM •••••••••••••FORTH in fast ROM ••••••••FORTH Ed & Decompiler diskTiny Basic in ROM •••• ~ •••Tiny Basic in Fast ROM •••C/Text Editor/Formatter ••Fast monitor ROM •••••••••Version 2.2 character ROM.Back issues (each) ••••••••

ISSUE 14Keyboard TranslationMore 4 MHz ModsModems, Lync & SIOsUndoing the ERASE(Much More)

ISSUE Il.Power SupplyRAM ProtectionVideo Wiggle112 PFM.PRN(Much More)

USER'S DISK 12

Especially for folks with single-drive systems andthose who want to try their hand at extending anassembler. Also a new CBIOS with printer interface,returns to default drive on reboot, stifles headbanging, supports CP/M 2.2 and 1.4, and written forMaO.

Including:1-Two single-disk copy programs, both

with source.2-The source of the Crowe Assembler.3-New Crowe.com file with larger symbol

table.4-New CBIOS for CP/M 1.4 and 2.2 (&

boot) •5-Disk mapper with source.6-Documentation for aIl the above.

FORTH IR ROM

Now, what you' ve all been wai ting for - FORTH inROM. This is standard FIG FORTH in three 2716's. FIGFORTH is standalone FORTH so you don't use CP/M ataIl. If you have disks, FIG FORTH handles the disklIa. If not, you can still enjoy a most fascinatinglanguage. A simple FORTH line editor and adecompiler are available on disk.

See issue #3, page 15 for more information about thedisk. Also see "Using Modem1" in the same issue forinformation about configuring the modem software.

USER'S DISK Il

Over 200K of software especially for the Big Board.

Including:1-Two fast disk copiers.2-The manual for Small C+.3-A ZaO assembler.4-Two disk formatters.5-0thello.6-A seriaI print routine.1-Modem software.a-Documentation for aIl the above.

TIHY BASIC IR ROH

This two-ROM set takes control of the system justlike FORTH, doing its own lia, loading Basicprograms and object code routines on and off thedisk or out of the third ROM. This fun little Basicis great for controller and utility applications.

NOTES- The above priees include media, package, and first

class postage (air mail for Other Foreign).U.S. funds only please.Send Big Board number with monitor ROM orders.Monitor & char. ROMs $5.00 each if you send a fastROM and a stamped, self-addressed return envelope.

Latest on the New Ferguson Board

We got a real scoop on the new Fergu­son board at the Big Board/Micro Cmeeting last week at the West CoastComputer Faire. Cal-Tex (the name JimFerguson, Russell Smith, and BillSiegmund selected for their new enter­prise) will be assembling the packages ata storefront in San Jose.

Bill Siegmund (the marketing memberof the group) showed off a prototype ofthe bare board and handed out a sheet ofgeneral information.

The new board will have:1. 4 MHz dock st-a.ndard.2. Room for 8, 64K ORAMs; 4K of staticCRT RAM; and 24K of EPROM or EE­PROM or statie RAM (and it will have aROM programmer on board).3. An interface for 5-in, 8-in, SO, andDO, SS and OS drives.4. SASI interface so you can add a harddisk by simply plugging it in (this wasjust added).5. Oisplay capabilities similar to OECVT-IOO, induding 7x9 dot matrix andprogrammable attributes such as re­verse, blinking, half intensity, etc.

6. STO bus interface, three paraIlel portsplus keyboard, OMA, two CTC timerchips and more.

Approximate priees are $245 for bareboard, $595 for complete kit (indudingaIl Il0, and 4 MHz), and $895 assembledand tested. They are estimating a three­day turnaround on orders for boards andkits and they expect to ship the first unitsMayL

Cal-Tex Computers780 Trimble Rd Suite 504San Jose, Calif 95131

ANNOUNCING

DOUBLE DENSITVDISK INTERFACE

FOR THE BIG BOARD

New fIoppy interface package for theBig Board lets you read and writesingle and double density disks with128, 256, 512, and 1024 Bytes/sector.

The package includes:1. Fully assembled and tested board,

cable and connector to replacethe 1111. Board contains 5 rcsincluding a Western Digital 1195.

2. An extended monitor in two 2716s.

3. A disk containing:Disk formatting program. (128,256,512,1024 bytes/sector)Disk copying program.An overlay for MOVCPM.COMA double density SYSGEN

4. DocumentationDependable 4MHz mod

- Jumpers to add to the Big Board.

Sector size is determined by how thedisk was formatted and is totallytransparent to the user.

Disk capacity ranges from: 241K forSS, SD, 128 bytes/sector to 668K forSS, DD, 1024 bytes/sector

Dring the f1avor of UnixTo your Z80-basedCP/ M system with

Uniea

"Unicum: a thing unique in its kind, especially an example of writing.Unica: the plural of unicum. »

The Unica: a unique collection of programs supporting many featuresof the Unix operating system never before available under CP lM. TheUnica are more than software tools; they are finely crafted in.struments of surgical quality. Sorne of the Unica are:

bc • binary file comparecat • catenate filescp - copy one or more filesdm - disk map and statisticshc • horizontal file catenationln - create file links (aliases)15 - directory listermv - move (rename) files, even across usersrm - remove filessc • source file compare, with resynchronizationsrt - in.memory file sortersr - search multiple files for a patternsp • spelling error detector, with 20,000 word dictionary

Each Unicum understands several f1ags ("options" or"switches")which control program alternatives. No special"shell" is needed;Unica commands are typed to the standard CP lM command inter·preter. The Unica package supports several Unix-Iike facilities, Iikefilename user numbers:

sc data.bas;2 data.bas;3(compares files belonging to user 2 and user 3);Wildcard patterns:

rm "tmp" ·v(types each filename containing the letters TMP and asks whether todelete the file);1/0 redirection:

15 -a ~list(writes a directory listing of ail files to file"list");Pi p es:

cat chap" ! sp ! srt ~ Ist:(concatenates each file whose name starts with"chap", makes a Iist ofmispelled words, sorts the Iist, and prints it on the listing device).

The Unica are written in XM-80, a low levellanguage which combinesrigorously checked procedure definition and invocation with the vers­atility of Z80 assembly language. XM-80 includes a languagetranslator which turns XM·80 programs into source code forMACRO·80, the industry standard assembler from Microsoft. ft alsoinc1udes a MACRO·80 object Iibrary with over forty "software corn.ponents", subroutine packages which are called ta perform servicessuch as piping, wildcard matching, output formatting, and device­independent 1/0 with buffers of any size from 1 to 64k bytes.

The source code for each Unicum main program (but not for the soft­ware component Iibrary) is provided. With the Unica and XM·80, Voucan customize each utility to your installation, and write your ownapplications quickly and efficiently. Programs which Vou write usingXM·80 components are not subject to any Iicensing fee.

Extensive documentation includes tutorials, reference manuals, in·dividual spec sheets for each component, and thorough descriptionsof each Unicum.

Requires minor modificationBoard and requires that Bigrun 4 MHz.

Available December 15, 1981.

Priee: $200

Otto Hiller Co.Scientific Equipment

P.O. Box 1294Madison, WI 53701

608·271·4747 3·5 pm

to BigBoard

Update poIicy: each Unica owner is informed when new Unica or com­ponents become available. At any time, and as often as vou Iike, Voucan return the distribution disk with a $10 handling fee and get thecurrent versions of the Unica and XM·80, with documentation for ailnew or changed software.

The Unica and XM-80 (which requires MACRO.80) are priced at$195, or $25 for the documentation. The Unica alone are suppIied as".COM executable files and are priced at $95 for the set, or $15 for thedocumentation. Software is distributed on 8" f10ppy disks for Z80CP/M version 2 systems.

Knowlogy"Shaplng Knowledge for Evolving Worlds"

P.O. Box 283Wilsonville, Oregon 97070

Visa/Mastercard customers cali (503) 635·5701 alter hours for nextday shlpment.CP/M is a trademark or Digital Research; Unica is a trademark or Knowlogy;Unix is a trademark or Bell Telephone Labs; XM·80 is a trademark or ScientilicEnterprises: Z80 is a trademark or Zilog Inc.

MICRO CORNUCOPIIJournal of the Big Board Users Group

11740 NW WEST ROADPORTLAND. OREGON 97229

GIVE YOUR BIG BOARD THE TIME OF DAY

MleROrlME 8DCLOCK/CALENDAR BOARD

A unique accessory for your Big Board, the MICROTIME 80 provides full time of day and datefunctions from thousandths of seconds through months. Built around National Semiconduc­tor's MM58167 dock chip, ifs features include a full-function alarm, eight programmableinterrupts (1/10 second to once a month), a programmable interrupt vector register, andNICAD battery back-up.Installation couldn't be simpler-just remove your Z-80 CPU, plug it into the MICROTIME 80,and then plug the MICROTIME 80 board into the Big Board.

NOW AVAlLABLE AS A BARE BOARD FOR ONLY $25DISKE'ITE CONTAINING PFM MODS AND PROGRAMS-ADD $5.

COMPLETE KIT

55495 PRICESREDUCED

A55EMBLED 6. TE5TED

56795Add 2.50 Postage & Handling N.J. Residents Add 5% Sales Tax

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