CP/M/CPM_CDROM.iso/cpm/zcprnews/z-news.708

Text File | 1994-07-13 | 19KB | 312 lines

EI                               Z-NEWS 708                        18 May 1987
==============================================================================
Of Significance.  Event of the season, early summer sees first board released
using Zilog Z280 chip (Z-News 705-4, 707-4).  High Tech Research of Redding,
CA, offers ULTRABOARD as an add-in to their K20 hard disk CP/M machine, and
'84 Kaypros.  Priced at $495, board runs at 12MHz and is said to be up[ to 10
times faster than a 4MHz Kaypro.  Knowing the Z280 cache data and instruction
capability, we at Echelon believe it will.  Board has one megabyte of RAM--
expandable to 16--as RAMdisk and print buffer.  And new driver is said to re-
write screens 25 times faster than standard Kaypros.  And driver increases
screen resolution to 640 by 400 pixels.  With an UltraBoard add-in, the K20
longs for our upgraded Z-System (ZOS), just as present CP/M systems crave
present Z-System.  Call or write High Tech Research for more information,
address and telephone numbers in Hardware Beat below.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From Our Mail Box.   "I want to thank Echelon for opening the doors to a new
world of eight-bit computing...your products and documentation have helped me
make the leap into assembly language programming...breathed new life into my
modified, but ageing, Kaypro II...low-level programming has given me insight
to greater computer fundamentals..." from Jim Thompson, New Britain, CT.
Thanks for the praise, Jim, and glad to hear you think programming with
Assembler is worth initial effort to learn it.  Also, thanks for the software
order.
     "...always eager to get Z-News for both technical and human stuff,"
writes Dan Kelly from Coos Bay, OR 97420.  Dan, we are just as eager to
produce both.
     Some may think we care not, but...if you are a minister in a church, or
simply an interested Christian, and use CP/M computers for your work, we
suggest a subscription to Clergy KUG.  Six issues per year for $12.00.
Editor, Elmer F. Little, Jr., does a super job of blending religion and
technology, passing on many tips useful in getting your job done, sowing and
cultivating the many fields for harvest.  Write Editor, Clergy KUG, 3868
Centorbi Court, Florissant, MO 63034, to place your order.

   By the way, for material to send our mailbox, think of the things you
   would like to see in the new Z-System (ZOS), beyond features of ZCPR
   v3.3 and ZRDOS v1.7.  Jay, Ken, Malcom, and Bridger are looking for
   your ideas--we have ours but yours are just as important.  Therefore,
   we need to be informed about yours before they can be merged with
   ours.  So, send in your wish list.  We are listening...

     David Johnson, Campbell, CA, writes to correct our use of mHz, instead of
MHz, to indicate megaHertz, a measurement unit of frequency.  We stand
corrected.  David also tells of other things that occasionally puts him ill at
ease: incorrect word hyphenation at line ends and reverse negatives in the
grammar world, and robots, taxation, planning for near- versus long-term
profits, production efficiency, etc., in the truly it's not a perfect business
world.
     "I highly enjoy Z-News and will continue to subscribe...wish more
software supported ANSI terminals...sending you my master of ZAS and ZLINK
v2.4 so you can upgrade me to 2.6..." from Allen McDonald, Washington D.C..
Allen, enjoy the free upgrade as a symbol of our dedication to making ZAS-
ZLINK the best assembler-linker combination available.  ANSI terminals may be
going the way of dinosaurs--ASCII Wyse outsells DEC ANSI and bit-mapped
screens become so popular ANSI appears in the lurch.

Z-Node Activity.   Just a reminder...as Z-News 707-1 stated, Z-Node Central
has moved and has a new telephone number: 415/948-6656.  Please use this
number instead of the old one.  We should provide better service from Los
Altos location.  If using PC-Pursuit, it's a San Jose (408) connection, not
San Francisco (415).  Thanks.

Software Update Service Report.   SUS #11 is filled...shipping in June.  One
new file, TX.LBR added since we last showed directory.  TX, by Harris
Landsberg, Brooklyn, NY, is just about the best of the text file listers,
straight, squeezed, or crunched, and from in libraries.  Output can be
redirected to a file or to printer, as desired.  Has other neat command-line
options, but doesn't recognize user areas or named directories and has no
built-in help.  Let's get Harris to make program a full Z-System utility (his
phone number is in LBR file).  Of course, you could be using JetFind and get
all the above plus string searching from multiple files (Z-News 701-1, Item 66
now $49.95, as stated in 705-3, plus shipping and handling).

    XDIR III, Version 2.0    Horizontal Listing by File Name/Type
    Disk: F  User:  0  Name: BACKUP, File Attributes:  Non-System
    Filename.Typ Size K RS   Filename.Typ Size K RS   Filename.Typ Size K RS
    -------- --- ------ --   -------- --- ------ --   -------- --- ------ --
    -SUS    .011      0 R    ACOPY14 .LBR     26      EDITND  .LBR     36
    SH11    .LBR     22      SHVAR11 .LBR     14      TX120   .LBR     12
    WDRAW   .LBR     62      WINDOM2 .LBR     70
                8 Files Using 242k, 8 Files on Disk and 540k Left

Z-News 705-2 has details of WDRAW and WINDOM; 707-1, EDITND and ACOPY.
Utilities SH and SHVAR come from Z-Shell expert Dreas Nielsen, Bellvue, WA.

Z-User's Corner.  In your work, if you find yourself constantly leaving your
wordprocessor and then re-entering another text file to get lines for the
first, you need Backgrounder II.  BGii permits you to hold in memory (a disk
buffer) a place in one program, go to another, return to the first and be in
exactly your original place.  Transfer pieces of text of one file to another
without leaving either program.  At any time within a program you have access
to operating system commands, like DIR, ERA, etc.  You do all these things
while you are automatically, sequentially, several files in the background.
If these features sound good to you, order BGii from us.  It's Item 10 on EI
Price List and is offered for $75 plus usual shipping and handling charges.
We only recommend BGii to those who have hard disk, RAMdisk of over 128k-
bytes, or both.  More details in Z-News 704-1, and in demonstration library on
Z-Nodes everywhere.  Get file BGIIDEM3.LBR.

   More power to those using desktop publishing.  The mainline media (the
   press) goes where the money is.  When you look at IBM's recent
   offerings and the coverage given them--too much over nothing--you know
   we are not receiving information we need to set us free.  Now, let's
   get back to the business of being innovative and creative--the heck
   with IBM and the media.  More power to those using desktop publishing.

     A once-over the elements of high resolution printing, laser-beam
(xerographic process) and digital phototypesetters (optical-chemical), and why
the ASCII terminal is so efficient compared to a bit-map terminal.  But first,
a little background.  ASCII terminals have built into their memories the
character sets they can display, and can be accessed using one byte per
character.  The host computers using them do not have much to do to have
requested characters displayed.  A bit-mapped terminal or a laser printer, on
the other hand, requires many bytes to display or print one character, if that
character is not already stored in local machine memory.  A 300-dot per inch
resolution laser requires 90,000 bits per square inch (300 X 300) to fully
cover that area with dots, characters, or other graphics.  Our dream laser,
the one with 720 dots per inch capability, requires 518,400 bits per square
inch.  Assuming 8 bits to the byte, an 8.5" by 1" printed-page of 8" by 10.5"
requires 945k-bytes for definition with present day laser printers, or 5.4
megabytes if our dream machine is used.  Think what that means if you have to
transfer the data from computer host to printer, page by page.  Wow!  Now we
know why printers are using Centronics parallel instead of 9600-baud serial
interfaces.  Now we know energy being expended by those people in the bit-map
image field to reduce page printing delays--lots!  Digital phototypesetters
use over 1200 dots per inch to get their jobs done.  Wonder no longer why they
take up to 10 minutes to process one page.  (We noticed using B/Printer to
save files coming from Newword or WordStar justified text, a three-to-one
expansion of file size occurs--and that with straight ASCII characters, no
graphics.  All the extra code comes from commands sent to printer to
microspace-justify lines and auto-print headers and footers, and the like.)
We pay a price to produce documents beyond dot-matrix and daisy-wheel overall
quality...so be it.
     There was a time when, for very personal notes, only hand-written would
do, then in business typewritten became appropriate.  Now a near-letter-
quality dot-matrix seems so impersonal as to be considered rude.  Daisy-wheels
these days are being replaced by lasers around offices (HP HAS sold over
250,000 of them.)  Who thinks of essence these days?  Form over substance,
substance over form!

This And That.  "Don't
take life too serious.  It
ain't nohow permanent."--
Walt Kelly, Pogo comic
strip author.
     Our EI logo, created by
graphics artist, Michelle
Kimler, Mountain View, CA, has
been selected for inclusion in High
Tech Trademarks, authored by
Professor John Mendenhall, California
Polytechic State University, San Luis
Obispo, CA.  Book, published by Art
Direction Books, New York City, comes
out this fall.  "Graphic designers and            "huge sketch of eagle"
ad agencies who have clients in the
computer hardware/software, semi-
conductor, laser technology and related
fields," should find this a great
reference manual.  Worldwide distri-
bution is planned.  By the way, Z-News
303-3 covers relationship of Echelon's
logo to eagles.
     Action, action.  Oh! The joy of
action...not just what can be done, but
what ought to be done--yes, asking that
ought, that's the on-slaught of wisdom.

Hardware Beat.   Something to rave about: K20 and Handyman are fully
compatible with ZCPR3 and Z-System.  High Tech Research, 1135 Pine Street,
Suite #107, Redding, CA 96001, 800/446-3220 (inside Calif. 800/446-3223), RAS
915/243-9358, offers super Z80 computer based on Kaypro-10 but with fast 20
megabyte Seagate 225 hard disk and 96-tpi floppy for backup, TurboROM that
adds additional speed.  Machine offers advantages of integrated desktop
calculator, calendar, note pad that transfers text to and from open WordStar
files, voice phone dialing from library file of telephone numbers, and
concurrent file management from within an application program.  Those into
speed and text generation and control should look into the K20.  Contact Bill
Nesting at High Tech for more information.  (Columnist, Ted Silveira, Santa
Cruz, CA, has thorough review of K20's features in Volume 4, Number 22 Issue
of Computer Currents newspaper, Z-News 608-1.)

   "The Art of Typography provides crucial services and render unlimited
   assistance to society.  It informs the citizen, advances the progress
   of science and art, nurtures and cultivated the intellect, and elevates
   the soul: its duty is to be the communicator and interpreter of wisdom
   and truth.  It is the depictor of the mind.  Therefore it is truly the
   art of all arts and the science of all sciences."--Pierre Simon
   Fournier, 17th Century French Typographer.

     Reliable sources say National's 32532 chip is being designed into Canon's
next-generation laser printer, the one to be used by Hewlett-Packard and
Apple, but not likely by IBM.  It's this engine that is to upstage Ricoh's
present 6-page-per-minute engine used by Epson and Okidata, and used by IBM,
their version shipping late summer, with its PS/2 computers.  This engine, not
the one in HP's present Series II printers, will give real publishing power to
the rest of us.  For printers using Postscript (HP, IBM, and Apple) and DDL
(HP, as a compatible language to PCL, their language for LaserJet series) page
description languages (Z-News 607-5), a chip of National's 32532 throughput--
one that's significantly higher than Motorola's 68020--is dearly needed to
process large amounts of bit-map data in a reasonable time, to not slow
printing down.  What's the sense having 6- and 8-ppm printers when solving the
algorithms takes nearly a minute per page, as is presently the case in so many
cases with Apple's Laserwriter.
     Ink hardly dry covering deals for Ricoh's 6-ppm laser printer by IBM,
Okidata, and Seiko Epson when C. Itoh, Torrance, CA, a Japanese trading
company, announces Jet-Setter, a 5-ppm Konica-engined machine, for $1795,
retail.  Printer has standard 300 by 300 dot resolution, 512k-bytes of memory,
3 internal fonts, and emulates the HP LaserJet Plus.  Options include a 1.5
megabyte memory expansion board, Diablo 630 and Epson FX-86 emulations, and 11
font cartridges.  Dealers get up to 40% discount--$800 lasers of Z-News 705-3
are near our grasp!
     Digital Equipment (DEC) new terminal line, VT330/340, near-ready for
delivery, replaces present VT220, with both monochrome text-only and color
text/graphics modes.  Such machines cause Wyse and TeleVideo (TVI) to rethink
their strategies in the ASCII market.  Since Wyse is the present value,
volume, and quality leader, we continue to pull for them to remain so, to keep
DEC and TVI on their toes.  We hope Wyse comes out with an IBM 3270 compatible
terminal, just to see what happens.  New WY-99GT ANSI/ASCII graphics terminal,
priced at $649, works with Z-System TCAP, IBM PS/2 Model 30, Lotus 1-2-3,
AutoCAD, and Ventura Publisher, priced at $649, should show world what Wyse
people are made of, what is up their sleeves--they are innovative leaders,
period.  Their words, their attitude, their actions create success.  A little
put aside each week will permit WY-99GT to be our next desktop computer
terminal.
     Japanese designers have difficulty keeping up with features of these hard
drives.  Conner Peripherals has been shipping their 40-megabyte (formatted)
3.5" hard disk drive (CP340) with SCSI interface.  Average access time is a
mere 29 milliseconds.  That is one drive our Ampro Bookshelf computer could
use.  Conner is about to ship a 100-megabyte (formatted) 3.5" with 25 msec
access (CP3100).  Cost?  About $10.00 a megabyte!  For more information,
contact Scott Holt at 2221 Old Oakland Road, San Jose, CA 95131, 408/433-3340.

Software Beat.  Digital Research, Inc., creators of CP/M, may have finally
found their place-in-the-sun with new president, Richard Williams.  He pushes
desktop publishing with economical package called GEM Desktop Publisher,
handles two typefaces and three styles with sizes from 7 to 72 points, priced
at $395.00, running on IBM PC-compatible computers.  Group that developed
Ventura Publisher and marketed by Xerox are all ex-DRI employees.  These are
the people that formed their own company when, in 1985, DRI cancelled internal
development of such software packages.  Under Williams, Gary Kildall, DRI
founder and chairman, is taking a hands-off attitude.  We wish DRI good
fortune.
     Z-Team member, Ken Taschner, updates SYSLIB, Z3LIB, and VLIB.  Routines
optimized, use Zilog mnemonics and opcodes--complete re-write.  Reductions in
code size (2 to 10%), improvements in speed (up to 23%) result.  All Z
utilities using the libraries benefit; in alpha test now, should be ready for
shipment at summer's end or early fall.

In Other Words.   Learning: The Next Frontier--tied to risk management and
life-styles...partnerships necessary as jobs get too big to be handled by one
individual.  Time and effort combine to make our contribution seem trivial,
but nothing could be further from reality.  A chain is no stronger than its
weakest link.  So also our contributions to the whole.  Learning manifest
itself by our ability to invent new strategies to deal with old situations.
That we dearly need now!
     On a serial production line, each previous step is performed before the
next is attempted.  If a step is not done correctly the next step may not be
able to be performed at all.  We each depend on others, we are not islands.
The whole is made up of parts.  We are of one planet called Earth!

                                                     What is our value-system?
                                   Big house, cars, boats, money =/ Happiness.
                        These days, we don't live anymore--we have lifestyles.
     If we don't love what we do on a day-to-day basis, there is no happiness.
==============================================================================
Of Angels and Eagles.   After you have heard two different eyewitness accounts
of the same automobile accident, you begin to wonder about the validity of
history.  How do we know, for sure, what ever happened anywhere?  History!
Bah!  Humbug!
     We ask a new hand be dealt us, one with different cards than destiny
appears to have given us.  Pray we not be judged for our weaknesses, but for
our loves.  Love, not an art form to us but our lives.
     It's deep into evening, as we finish up learning differences between
mandolin and lute, so off to have a moonlight cocktail.  Hope Magdalena likes
potion we have blended...
     Time to close our eyes, look at the stars--be gentled by their touch.
See you down the lines...


Echelon, Inc.       885 North San Antonio Road         Los Altos, CA 94022 USA
Telephone: [phone]    Telex: 4931646   Z-Node Central (RAS): 415/948-6656

Trademarks:  Little Board, Ampro Computers; SB180, SB180FX, GT180, Micromint;
ON!, Oneac; DT42, The SemiDisk, Deep Thought 42, SemiDisk Systems; XLR8,
M.A.N. Systems; VT-220, DEC, Digital Equipment; Laserwriter, Apple; Z80,
Zilog; HD64180, Hitachi; 32532, National; 68020, Motorola; Z-System, ZCPR3,
ZRDOS, ZOS, Z-Tools, Zas, Zlink, Z-Msg, Term3, Quick-Task, NuKey, Z80 Turbo
Modula-2, Lasting-Value Software, Echelon; CP/M, Digital Research; 3270, PS/2,
IBM, International Business Machines; TurboROM, Advent; AutoCAD, Autodesk;
Graphix Toolbox, Turbo Pascal, Borland Int'l; 1-2-3, Lotus Development;
Ventura Publisher, Xerox; Postscript, Adobe; DDL, Imagen; WordStar, Newword,
MicroPro Int'l; K20, Handyman, High Tech Research; JetFind, Bridger Mitchell;
WY-99GT, Wyse Technology.


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                                 Fly with Z!



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Z-News 708 is Copyright MCMLXXXVII Echelon, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.
Permission to reprint, wholly or partially, automatically granted if source
credit is given to Echelon.