INMC 80 News

Nascom Rules !

Congratulations on the latest issues of the Club Newsletter. They were as usual very interesting. I was particularly interested in the ‘System Software’ items such as ‘Load and Tab’, ‘VARPRO’, ‘CC.COM’ and ‘GLOBAL.CRT’, as it is from this type of item that one can get a much better understanding of the insides of NAS-SYS, BASIC, CP/M etc.

I am very glad, having recently had short encounters with a PET, a TANDY, and also with an Apple, to say nothing of a 6800 and an 8085 development system, that TI chose (quite by chance at the time), Nascom and the Z80.

Since the Nascom 1, in early 1979, was just about the only available choice for a cheap single board system, the choice was largely decided for me.

I have now graduated to a Nascom 2 with full DOS/CP/M available and it only remains for me to add a colour board and an 80x25 screen format to make the system complete.

I do have one ‘moan’. It relates to publicity for NAS­COM and INMC80.

Many of the short ‘What’s Available’ and ‘Buyers Guide” items in the Computing Magazines are hopelessly inaccurate when it comes to Nascom products and compatible accessories from other sources. It almost seems to me as if P.C. have a bias against NAS­COM, and PCW are little better.

Similarly, the listings of Local and National Clubs have often omitted INMC80, although I see that the club is listed in this months’ P.C.

Please keep up the good work. I only wish I lived nearer so that I could give more than verbal assistance.

Best wishes for continued success.

C. Bowden, Truro, Cornwall.

Just a few points.

Many thanks for the effort put into INMC80 which continues to be a mine of useful hints and tips and also provides a ‘clearing house” for the discussion of certain well-known (to some) bugs in NAS­COM hardware.

For the amusement of all readers of INMC80 please mention the following misprint on P.123 of William Barden’s “Z80 Microcomputer Handbook”. Line 5 refers to “… the eternal interrupt…”!! (Is this what sends the CPU to that great mainframe in the sky!).

Regarding David Parkinson’s request for comments on documentation, may I suggest a compromise in the amount of detail provided with a program? As was stated a complete source code listing is liable to be expensive but how about:–

(a) Indicating major sections and/or subroutines by memory address;

(b) indicating also by memory address the positions of Code, Tables, Workspace and Message Text so that disassembly may be carried out without too much Sherlock Holmes work;

(c) noting if any Monitor pointers or reflections have been modified.

A.J.Fry, Portsmouth, Hants.

Radio Hams

I think the INMC80 News is an extraordinary effort reflecting much enthusiasm and one hell of a lot of very hard work and I appreciate it enough to join the chorus for more issues, more often. No, I’m sorry, I’ve nothing to contribute (yet) but I would ask if you could put in a few lines stating that being a Radio Amateur (GM3TYS) and have an ICOM IC245E VHF Transceiver, I would like to contact any enthusiast who may have succeeded in interfacing an IC 245E/​IC211 with his Nascom 2. My intention is to do this and eventually write a program allowing frequency control, scan, search, logging and RTTY/C.W. communication.