--- RUNNING 8080/Z80 CP/M programs on MSDOS or PCDOS computers --- The following two messages are relayed from the DKUG RBBS, Detroit. ----- From: Bill Duerr To: Jim Petersen Re: Upgrading IBM-AT to CP/M The info following is from the October, 1986 Profiles Magazine. Run CP/M The Blue Thunder is a low-priced ($199.50) model. The Blue Thunder runs with a 5-MHz clock speed. It will blow away the V20 and some competitors' cards with higher clock speeds. The Blue Lightnin' is the premium model. It runs at an ultra-high clock speed of approximately 9-MHz. It comes with a complete suite of development software. You get SLR systems superfast assembler and linker. You get the DSD80 debugger, including an exclusive remote version for microprocessor develpment. The Blue Lightnin' sells for $595.00. Manufacturer: Decmation 2065 Martin Ave. Suite 110 Santa Clara, CA 95050 (408) 980-1670 Distributor: TSI 1897 Garden Ave. Eugene, OR 97403 1-800-874-2288 I remember Profiles doing a review of products that allow you to upgrade your IBM AT to a CP/M Kaypro. But don't know what issue it was in. Wednesday is DKUG's monthly meeting. I'll ask around. ----- Date: 01-10-88 11:49:59 EST From: Barney Nagel To: Jim Petersen Re: CP/M on IBM First, the information that you wanted is: Product Name: RUN/CPM - COPROCESSOR BOARD FOR IBM and COMPATIBLES Company: Micro Interfaces 16359 N.W. 57th Ave. Hialeah, FL 33014 Phone: (305) 623-9262 1-800-637-7226 Telex 510600480 MICRO INTER CO Cost: $199 (single unit) $175 (group buy - 3 or more) The RUN/CPM coprocessor is contained on a single board that is mounted in one of your available slots .... I mounted it in a IBM AT close compatible (CompuADD STANDARD 286). I'm running my system completely populated with 1-meg ram on the motherboard, 4-megs of Intel expanded memory (Above Board 286 with piggyback), 2400 baud internal modem, Vega Deluxe EGA with a NEC Multisysnc, MicroSoft Bus Mouse... when you throw in a multi-purpose I/O card, I have all of the slots populated. I also have a Miniscribe 42 meg (28ms) harddrive and the whole system is tied together with a Phoenix BIOS. My system runs at 8mHz with 0 wait state. It yields a Norton SI of 9.0. The only reason I took the trouble to mention all of this detail was to validate the complexity of the hardware when I say that I've had no trouble with the RUN/CPM board in this environment. The coprocessor contains 64K of it's own RAM and runs on a Zilog Z80B at 4 mHz. The board was simple to install and setup. Simply run the Install program and this will put the interface file into you Config.sys file. When invoked, a program is loaded that contains a modified CPM 2.2 that will permit extensive interaction between DOS and CPM. The board runs most application type software and at times will surprise you by running some MSDOS versions also. In order to differentiate between the CPM and COM files, when RUN/CPM is loaded ... you have to rename the 'COM' extent to "CPM', these permits the CPM and MSDOS to gracefully reside on the same harddisk. It will support named directories (only one partition), and uses the DOS command structure for I/O (ie, PIP, D (sorted directory), etc will not work). However, Dave Rand's NSWEEP for MSDOS works great, and any command that is supported by the DOS I/O. For example, SDIR/P is a DOS program for obtaining a 'Paused' sorted directory .,.. works great. Use COPY instead of PIP. We've been using it about a year now, with our main applications supporting our small mail order business ... originally begun with the Kaypro II. We use it for all of our accounting (Starr - Accounting Partner), MicroSoft's CPM version of Multiplan, and Wordstar 3.3, I can use many of the utilities from the CPM world also, including NULU, LU, CUNCH.UNCRUNCH, etc. Our Club treasurer, Bob Sage, has also used one very successfully with MicroSoft's Starr database. He is using an IBM AT. I presume that it would operate equally well with a PC/XT 8088. There is also a nifty RAM resident program that will allow you to configure on the fly. First of all, you can set either (or both) disk drive to format, read, and write CPM (115 disk formats are supported) .... It supports the 96TPI 1.2 meg hi-capacity drives as well as the standard 360K, 48 TPI drives. Here's a list of the things you can do on the fly... o Setup CP/M terminal emulation .... 96 terminals supported. o Setup CP/M disk emulation ... 115 formats supported. o Permits to you to assign logical drives - supports, A - P. o Permits the use of ramdisks. o Supports assigned (by you) I/O redirection. o Set colors (if you have color monitor.) o Sets Hot Key selection. o Key-board input translation (permits macros on function keys.) o Supports video mode selection (columns and rows, etc) We have had no trouble reading our Kaypro II or Kaypro 484 disks. However to be on the safe side, we will only write to disks that have been formated on the Kaypros. We have, however, successfully formatted a disk from the 1.2 meg and 360K drives and transferred the data. Barney Additional notes from Keith Petersen: On Monday, January 11, 1987, Micro Interfaces was contacted by telephone for updated information. Several improvements have been made since Barney purchased his board. The Z80 board has not been sold since October 1987. They now use a HD64180 (Z80 upward-compatible) chip in two versions of the board: 6 MHz $275, and 10 MHz $499. Group discounts are available. Decmation makes the Micro Interfaces board. The list of local users of the RUN/CPM board is not limited to IBM AT owners. There is at least one user who has an IBM XT. He gave a demonstration and talk on it at the CP/M club about six months ago.