Scor­pio News

Since I have only just acquired my clone I have not collected the full range of programs I will need. The public domain programs are of a high standard and there is sure to be one which will suit my needs for the next few years.

For those wanting to explore the ‘C’ environment there is MINIX, which whilst not in the public domain, is a rewrite of the popular Unix with all the source code being published in a book. Primarily it is designed as a teaching aid so students can alter code and see the effects of so doing.

In short one is entering a rich world where one can do one’s own thing. I feel that your excellent journal should include this aspect of computing as well as the Gemini environment. Indeed Gemini have joined the MSDOS world with their adoption of the Costgold card for their range. All that is needed is to provide an adaptor for 80-BUS to have the full range of colour cards on our traditional systems. Scorpio News’ contribution could be to establish the database of a selection of public domain software for its readers.

Finally many congratulations on your efforts in launching Scorpio Hews.

Yours sincerely, John Stuckey, Spartacode Ltd., Bognor Regis, W. Sussex.

Various Points.

Dear Editor

Many thanks for an excellent second issue of Scorpio News. There were many items of interest and I feel obliged to put pen to paper end comment upon some of them.

Dr Dark mentions that he would like to obtain a board which existed to run a Nascom 2 keyboard on a Gemini IVC/SVC. If such a board exists I too would be most interested to obtain one.

He also talks about the ED80 editor from Hisoft. I have used this on occasion and found it unable to read/​write files to drive P:, this being the drive MAP 80 assign for the RAM drive. A short investigation reveals that ED80 believes drives end at O:. This can be remedied by altering with DDT etc, one byte:

If your version does not have FE 10 at this location do not make the changes.

Dave Hunt enquires of us humble subscribers as to whether articles about the IBM and clones would be of interest. I for one would welcome articles about MS-DOS, the innards of MBIs, and 8088 assembler.

For the past month or so I have been in hot pursuit of R. Conns ZCPR system, which C. Bowden writes about. More importantly for me is Richard Conn’s SYSLIB. Anyone programming with CP/M and assembler should obtain SYSLIB. It is a collection of some 100+ (I haven’t counted) subroutines, which do all the nasty chores for us assembler proggers. I heartily recommend it!

The latest version of SYSLIB is 3.6, and is available from the CPMUG’s Software Library in volumes SIG/M 261, 262, 263, which also contain ZCPR 3. Incidentally, the HELP program mentioned by C. Bowden for ZCPR 3 will not work under CP/M. However, R. Conns earlier HELP.COM version 2.4 on CPMUG volumes SIG/M 99 and 103 will with minor mods and re-assembly. I have converted HELP 2.4 for CP/M and converted the .ASM source to .MAC. It also uses SYSLIB. If anyone would like a copy it will be donated back to the CPMUG.

Many thanks for an interesting (and on-time) read.

Yours sincerely, Ian Cullen, Ipswich, Suffolk.