Scorpio News |
July–September 1988 – Volume 2. Issue 3. |
Page 23 of 39 |
---|
giant leap from a 2764 to a 27256 to support the extra features and interfaces, and some of the logic has condensed into three PALs. An AMD 8088 still runs the show, with a Motorola 6845 video chip and now a Signetics 2651 serial controller. No brand loyalty at Io/Gemini, obviously.
Well, that’s about it, really. All the quirks and features of the old Pluto are. there, including the NASIO and DBDR lines; it appears to be totally compatible with my old software. Because the palette can go on the same card, that evil piggy-back is a thing of the past. Now if they could just fix the reset, update the manual and make the @$**&? thing go a bit faster, I’d have to say it’s a very good product.
At my company we use mainly Micromint computers, as advertised in Byte, with 64180 CPUs running ZCPR3 and ZRDOS+, and on the few occasions I have to use a CP/M computer my blood pressure rises to a dangerous level. ZRDOS is the biz! I am totally sold on it. It makes MSDOS look like Nasbug by comparison. In the States it has an enthusiastic user base well-supported by over fifty bulletin boards from which tools and updates can be downloaded, but in this country the support is indistinguishable from zero. I guess this is only to be expected, given that a million Brits thought that a disk was something in your back that slipped when you tried to carry all the bits of a BBC upstairs at once. Well, help has afrived. J B Designs (__ ______ _____, Cirencester, Glos. ___ ___, tel. ____ _____) have become UK dealers for Micromint and related goodies; I am happy to say that they base their pricing on a more sophisticated algorithm than changing the dollar symbol to a pound sign. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to pay less by going direct. “But”, I hear you ask, “what has this got to do with me?” Lots, if you want to use Z-System on your hand-cranked hardware, because a UK user register is being put together and soon there’ll be a bulletin board (or Z-Node, as we initiates call it) on line at a telephone near you.
The Z-System is not of course a Micromint product. It is the property of Echelon Inc and is definitely not in the public domain, though its status is a little indistinct because parts of it are freely available over the phone. I suspect this is pure philanthropy on the part of the copyright holders but it works very well, because many of the users are very clever guys indeed and upload their own software tools pro bono publico (“for the general good”, to those of you who went to comprehensives). ’Tis a pity all our good software people have been working on Nimrod and similar systems, and are too busy to do anything useful. Or they were; maybe they’re free now (dig, dig). Anyway these gents, whose names all seem to be Irv, Jay or Wayne, give the Z-System exemplary support through the network of Z-Nodes. Once logged on you can download newsletters, help files and manuals,
Page 23 of 39 |
---|