The secret of banked CP/M Plus is to make the bank switching software as
efficient as possible as a lot of bank switching goes on, but even though I have
to map 8 blocks on every bank switch, there is no visible degradation. Of the
memory not allocated to banks or common, one block is used to reload CCP from on
warm starts and the reset is a RAM disk again. The disk cache does speed things
up a bit, but making drive M: the temporary disk and making CCP search drive M:
first for any programs is even better!
Conclusions
Was it all worth it? In terms of size, the RAM disk I have created is too
small to use for program development and I may still buy the Gemini 2Mb RAM disk
when it appears, but on the other hand using some of the additional memory to
run a banked CP/M Plus does seem to produce the system I am looking for! Now
I’ve added a GM888 board, and CP/M-86 comes up with a TPA of 243k, but that’s
another story!
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