Downloading and using CP/M software on the Z80 Playground

Рет қаралды 6,915

3 жыл бұрын

Some people have asked me how to get software for the Z80 Playground, so here are a couple of examples of downloading old software from the internet and installing it on the Z80 Playground.
It needs to be CP/M software, for CP/M v2.2 in order to work, which means a .COM file.
In these examples I get a text editor from www.zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cp... and an Infocom game from www.samcoupe-pro-dos.co.uk/cpm...
The Windows tools I use are SAMdisk3811 and cpcxfs.
On the CP/M side I just use UNARC to extract files from the .ARK file.

Пікірлер: 19

@ozbandit71 3 жыл бұрын

This stuff is pretty amazing. I’m getting inspired to build one of these myself. I used to love those infocom games back in the day. Keep up the great work!

@CircuitBreaker256 3 жыл бұрын

Which was your favourite Infocom title? I've tracked down most of them now.

@ozbandit71 3 жыл бұрын

@@CircuitBreaker256 I think I recall one called Suspended. Might have been another called Deadline. And there was Hitch Hiker’s. This was on a PC though. I did not know these games dated back to CP/M. Unrelated question though, where does the boot monitor come from that we see with the menu of things to do on the playground. Is that something you coded? Does it just boot other things by loading from USB?

@CircuitBreaker256 3 жыл бұрын

@@ozbandit71 The boot monitor is in the EEPROM, and it is something I made. It does a few bits and pieces, but the main goal is to load CP/M, which is on the USB-pen-drive.

@Xalior 3 жыл бұрын

Nicely done :). It never ceases to amaze me that people have forgotten to how to use CP/M so hopefully your great wee walkthrough here will help all those Flipping Whipper-Snappers ;-) The terminal configuration was always one of the things that was hardest to get right with a new software install. VT100 and ANSI are mostly interchangeable, except the colour/8bit stuff, which you probably won’t bump into on early CP/M software... The Sam is mostly a (not very good) Speccy clone, made by Miles Gordon Technology, the same folks who did several of the disk drive interfaces on the classic ZX. PCW disk format is one of the more common ones found today, since it was one of the later CP/M machines still sold and made. Also found on the Sinclair +3 and the Amstrad CPC. The 7 at the start of the game is probably it telling that it’s an “Inform-7” file format (the games are all written in a meta-language, and executed in a Text Adventure VM, called zMachine in modern parlance). And, once again, thanks for another awesome vid. -Dx

@CircuitBreaker256 3 жыл бұрын

The Sam Coupe images show that it looked a bit like a car. How bizarre is that? Thanks for the info about the mysterious "7". I thought it was a bug. Now I need to learn how the .DSK formats work so that I can support them directly on the Z80 Playground.

@another3997 2 жыл бұрын

Interesting, I really like the idea of a retro style 8 bit machine to play around with. It takes me back to my Sinclair ZX81 and Atari 8 bit days. The SAM Coupé was actually an attempt at creating a "Super Spectrum". Unfortunately for MGT, this was at the dawn of the 16 bit era... 8 bit was now old hat, and it failed to sell. Ironically, it's spiritual successor, the 'Spectrum Next', has a waiting list as long as your arm and the SAM Coupé is a valuable collector's item.

@Dr.GeoDave 2 жыл бұрын

ROFF4 might be the old text formatter to create a reasonable looking printer output. I used ROF on a mainframe and micro back in the day. Actually used an editor (QED) in combination with ROF to write my Masters circa 1981.

@locnar1701 3 жыл бұрын

I would think that the 128 and 64 lables are based on the amount of memory they are targeted at, not the commodore 128 etc.

@GettinSadda 2 жыл бұрын

I suspect that one of the early Infocom target systems used ESC 7 or chr$(128 + '7') for clearing the screen and the code was just left in!

@tony_w839 2 жыл бұрын

I had a Sam Coupe developed as Spectrum compatible plus improved graphics, sound & 3"disc. Being z80 will run cp/m. I had word processor and CALC spreadsheet. Still in loft.

@lorenzoporciani 3 жыл бұрын

You could make the esp32 connect to the internet and download the software from a repo :P

@Xalior 3 жыл бұрын

I already run a CP/M software mirror with download tools for the ESP01 for the spectrum next. ;-). The issue here comes from free serial ports, else I would have made a downloader with my own playground (which is great fun!!) -Dx

@guidolehwalder9376 3 жыл бұрын

found a slightly newer compile of cpcxfsw (2 months - so Oct 2016 but same version-number 0.85p10) at the page www.octoate.de/tag/cdt/ under www.octoate.de/download/utility/cpcxfs-20161021.zip Thanks for showing up this software ;)