TRSTimes WILL continue in with bimonthly issues
I have kept the subscription rate for U.S and Canada the same as last year ($18.00).
However, because of the impending postal hike, I am forced to raise the overseas subscription rates. They are as follows:
Europe, Central & South America: $23.00 for surface mail or $29.00 for air mail.
Asia, Australia & New Zealand: $25.00 for surface mail or $32.00 for air mail.
I do apologize to our foreign subscribers. Unfortunately, to balance the books, there simply was no alternative.
On another note, our supply of unused material - articles, programs, etc. - is getting VERY short. In order for TRSTimes to do a good job in 1991 (and, hopefully, again in 1992), I urge you, the readers, to participate by sending in your programs, articles, reviews, hints & tips, or anything else that might be of interest to other TRS-80 users. If motivated by nothing else - do so in self-defense - you certainly don't want to read 6 issues of TRSTimes written entirely by me!
As you will see elsewhere in this issue, another 12 disks have been added to our Model l/lll public domain library. There will be more made available, but the cataloging process is being interrupted while this issue of TRSTimes is being put together. There will also be additional Model 4 public domain disks coming, but they will have to wait until the Model l/lll work is finished. Hopefully, the Jan/Feb issue will list the additional Model 4 disks.
My Model I blew up earlier this year. Various people looked at it, and all declared the patient completely dead. I started looking around for another, but didn't have a lot of success. Either the system was not in as good a shape as I would have liked, or the price was unreasonable. Well, a few weeks ago, "Sandy" Sandusky came to the rescue. He donated a complete Model I system, expansion interface, 3 drives and the works, to TRSTimes. Boy, this system was in good shape. It certainly had been taken care of. It looks (and works) almost as new. I started to work on it as soon as I brought it home and, as you can see in this issue, it produced an article.
Thanks, Sandy, I really appreciate it.
My office has two Model 4's (one desktop with a 5 meg hard drive, the other a 4P with a 15 meg hard drive), a Model III, a Model I, a PC clone, a LaserJet series II printer, a Citizen MSP50, and a DMP200.
That ought be enough equipment for any one person, right? WRONG!! The other day Roy Beck called and informed me that he had just made a deal for a Model 16B. He said that there was another one available - did I want it? I looked around the office -1 could still see the floor -so, of course, I said yes.
The computer has not as yet arrived - it is coming from overseas - but it is supposed to come with one drive and a 15 meg hard drive, along with a fair share of software. I really do look forward to getting it so I can play with it. This will be a nice learning experience for me as I have never touched a 16B, and know next to nothing about it.
All i know is that it has Z-80 chip and a 68000 chip, allowing the machine to run both TRSDOS and the Radio Shack version of UNIX, known as XENIX. The TRSDOS part should be interesting. The "SOURCE" (the official commented disassembly of the Model 4 DOS) indicates that a version of TRSDOS 6.2 is capable of running in the 16B (Model II mode). If that version is still available from Roy Soltoff (Misosys), I will get it just to play around and see how many programs I can get to run on both machines. Programs written in Basic shouldn't be much trouble. The fun part will be the assembly language programs. It seems to me that, if a program is well behaved (using only official SVC's), it ought to run on both machines. Well, we'll see!
I'm not too sure about the XENIX aspect of the machine. The closest I've come to this operating system is playing around with OS-9 on the Color Computer - and I hated it. I think OS-9 is the sole reason that I've once again dismantled the CoCo and stored it in the garage. Hopefully XENIX will prove to be a little more civil - and maybe even faster.
Before ending this column, I would like to thank the fine people who contributed to this issue. First, "USING THE I/O BUS OF THE MODEL 4" was written by Heine A R de Miranda from Holland. It is an excellent article, written in excellent English. His command of the language puts most of us to shame, doesn't it?
Roy Beck, once again, comes up with a winner. Crashing a hard disk is what we all have nightmares about. Now we have something to go by if the unmentionable should happen.
Dr. Allen Jacobs handed me a disk and said: Here is a little something about ALLWRITE". 'Little something', indeed. It was 40K of great information for users of that word processor, so we had to split the article into two parts.
Along with the above, to Jim King, Art McAninch, Frank Slinkman, Roy Garcia and Sam McFarland, a big thank you from TRSTimes.
TRSTimes magazine
PUBLISHER EDITOR Lance Wolstrup CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Roy Beck Dr. Allen Jacobs TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE Members oft San Gabriel Tandy Users Group Valley TRS-80 Users Group Valley Hackers' TRS-80 Users Group
TRSTimes magazine is published bi-monthly by TRSTimes Publications. 5721 Topanga Canyon Blvd, Suite 4. Woodland Hills, CA. 91367. (818) 716-7154. Publication months are January, March, May, July, September and November.
Entire contents [c] copyright 1990 by TRSTimes publications. No part of this publication may be reprinted or reproduced by any means without the prior written permission from the publishers. All programs are published for personal use only. All rights reserved.
1990 subscription rates (6 issues): UNITED STATES & CANADA; $18.00 (U.S. currency) ALL OTHER COUNTRIES; $23.00 for surface mail, or $29.00 for air mail. (U.S. currency only) Article submissions from our readers are welcomed and encouraged. Anything pertaining to the TRS-80 will be evaluated for possible publication. Please send hardcopy and, if at all possible, a disk with the material saved in ASCII format. Any disk format is acceptable, but please note on label which format is used. Also, please make sure that your name and address is written legibly on both hardcopy and disk label.
Editorial
Reader mail
Lance Wolstrup
Dr. Allen W. Jacobs
review by Lance Wolstrup
King, Wolstrup, McAninch, Slinkman, Garcia
Lance Wolstrup
USING THE I/O BUS OF THE MODEL 4 . Heine A R de Miranda
JUST FOR THE HOLIDAYS Sam McFarland
Classifieds
I have a question that perhaps you or your readers can, or already have, answer. I am using a Model 4 with a 15 meg hard drive and a DWP-220 printer, running LS-DOS 6.3.1. On of the programs I use is SuperScripsit, Version 01.01.00. My question is, does anyone know of a way to change from one pitch to another within the same document?
In order to change the pitch of the printer, two control codes must be sent at the same time (27 & 14 for 12 pitch; 27 & 15 for 10 pitch), and from everything I've tried, SuperScripsit will not allow you to send two control codes at the same time.
To approach the problem from a different angle, I've tried moving a block of text with a different pitch than the original document, but that doesn't work either. As soon as the block is moved, it defaults to the original document's pitch.
If anyone has an answer to this problem, I would appreciate it if they would contact me.
Walt Danylak
115 Upland Rd.
Syracuse, NY 13207-1119
(315) 479-5879
I am not a (Super) Scripsit user, but according to local sources it is not possible. Whoa, that can't be right -everything is possible on the TRS-80.
OK, SuperScripsit experts, let's hear from you.
Good news for the many users of CLAN. This program now has a users group. Contact: CLAN USERS GROUP ARTHUR C. HURLBURT 1919 N. CLARK ST. DAVENPORT, IA 52804 (319) 391-1606
This information is current as of 9/13/90. Mike Lingo Orange, CA
I have more information about the "RUMMY BUZZARD" mentioned on page 14 of the September/October issue. First of all, you don't need any special utilities to see the message; it can be done using the DEBUG utility supplied with the DOS. From the 'TRSDOS Ready" prompt, just enter "DEBUG" to begin, "F" to enter file mode, "HERZ50/BLD for the filename, and";" to view the second sector of the file. Second, there is more to the message than what is that sector. Back up to the first sector of HERZ50/BLD, and you'll see the "JOE:" which precedes the message.
I once read somewhere (sorry, but I can't find the exact source right now) that "JOE: HELLO YOU RUMMY BUZZARD" used to be the format pattern used by the FORMAT command when initializing a new diskette. It was used in the pre-release versions and perhaps in some early released versions. The format pattern was later changed to a^ bunch of hexadecimal !E5' bytes, followed by a copyright message in the last sixteen of each sector. My guess is that either HERZ50/BLD was originally created on a disk using the old formatting pattern (and accidentally picked up some of it), or someone at Tandy got sentimental and hid the message there for old times' sake.
One last thing: I know the decision whether or not to continue publishing TRSTimes in 1991 is coming up. I would like to encourage you to continue. I think the TRS-80 community is stiil going strong and will continue to have interest in TRSTimes in the near future. TRSTimes has become my personal favorite TRS-80 magazine since 80 Micro dropped support. Thanks for all you've done.
John C. Fowler
La Jolla, CA
I completely missed the "JOE:" in sector 1 of HERZ50/BLD. Now, as for the theory of the message being a previous format pattern, I must take issue with that. To my knowledge it just isn't possible, as the disk controller is only capable of accepting certain bytes, such as E5 B5 and a couple of others, for this special task. Eric Maloney of 80 Micro speculates that "Joe, you rummy buzzard" was used in a prototype format program's verification utility and got inserted at the end of each sector in the early TRSDOS 1.3 disks. He further speculates that the verification utility was later changed to insert "(c) 1980 Radio Shack".
Eric Maloney may have something there, but it does not explain why the message appears several times in sector 2 of HERZ50/BLD. I still feel that it is much more likely that one of Tandy's programmers got cute (or defiant) and put the message there 'just for the pure heck of it' during a late night session with the editor/assembler and a bottle of his favorite adult beverage. What strikes me interesting is that "JOE:" is not the last 4 bytes of sector 1; there are actually 32 more bytes following this message. I wonder what was there originally.
As you will see elsewhere in this issue, the decision on the future of TRSTimes has been made. TRSTimes will continue in 1991.1 fully agree with you that the interest in the TRS-80 machines is still high. Who would have believed that in September 1987?
TERMINAL EMULATION
The library association in Portland, Oregon has set up a communication link for access to its card catalog. Tandy's COMM software fails to connect.
The library indicates a choice of terminal emulations: ADDS Viewpoint, ADDS VP Enhanced Mode, Wyse 50, and VT-100.
Does anyone know of existing software for the Model 4 that will meet these requirements?
The library would be happy to have any information to pass on to Model 4 owners who call with enquiries. I'll get whatever information I recieve to them.
Charles Stones
Portland, OR
As I am not knowledgable in the telecommunications field, I can only recommend that you try FASTERM. This is, as far as I know, the most advanced communications program for the TRS-80. You can get this program from the author: Mel Patrick, 13699 70A Ave, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada V3W2J8.
Does anyone have the answer?
NOTES ON RND
I thorougly enjoyed Delmer D. Hinrichs article "Is Your RND Really Random?" in the September issue of TRSTimes. The tests certainly show the TRS-80's as the capable machines they are. Many thanks to Mr. Hinrichs for a truly fine and interesting article.
I did find one small error. On page 25, about the middle of column 2, Model 4 Basic is grouped with MS-DOS Basic (GW-Basic) as being able to produce a random number from 0 to 1 by using RND, as well as being able to produce a random integer from 1 to 10 with INT(RND*10) +1.
While this works fine in GW-Basic, it produces nothing but syntax errors in Model 4 Basic. The Model 4 should have been grouped with Model I & III as the RND syntax is identical for all three machines.
Robert G. Pinto
Brooklyn, NY
Right you are. Somehow we inserted a tab before "Model 4". The tab should have been placed before "MS-DOS"
WILDCARDS & MORE
Got the new TRSTimes the other day, and have had fun reading it. Thought I'd reply to your query on p. 16 and also follow up on a few other things.
First, regarding your query about backing up invisible and system files using the wildcard method. Since I have done this for quite some time on LDOS 5.3,1 was surprised that an old-time hacker like yourself didn't know. But I guess we all have more to learn.
"Now, class, take out your 'TRSDOS Version 6' manual and turn to page 1-27." The first example given is a wildcard backup of all files from :0 to :1, including system and invisible files. "BACKUP $:0 :1 (SYS.INV)" is the example. I have used a variant of this in LDOS 5.3 to create what I call a "microsystem" disk. What is a "microsystem" disk? Well, I am now a "dual mode" TRS-80 and MS-DOS user. I have a Model III with two DS drives, and a 386SX clone. I also use a Zenith Turbo XT clone at work. When using SuperCross/XT to transfer files back and forth, I want to move as many files on one pass as possible. So I format an LDOS data disk at 43 tracks (the limit my machine can handle) in drive :1. I then run the following file, which I call MICROSYS/JCL: ATTRIB :1 (NAME = "SX3DISK") BACKUP SYS8/SYS:0 :1 (S) BACKUP SYS1$/SYS:0 :1 (S) KILL SYS11/SYS.P3UF:1 BACKUP SYS2/SYS:0 :1 (S) BACKUP SYS3/SYS:0 :1 (S) BACKUP SYS4/SYS:0 :1 (S)
This puts exactly the minimum number of LDOS system files needed to handle the functions called for under SuperCross/XT. For LS-DOS, I assume that changing (S) to (SYS) and "KILL SYS11/SYS.P3UF:1" to "REMOVE SYS11/SYS.SYSTEM6:1" would create the same disk. I don't know if there is a way to backup ONLY invisible, or ONLY system, files without the filespec or partspec, but this definitely does the job. And, of course, the QUERY function is supported within BACKUP, so by adding Q=Y as a parameter, you could backup only what you wanted.
Speaking of "dual mode", I would find it helpful if TRSTimes would include coverage of the problems faced by users operating in dual mode; such as file transfers, how to interface a TRS-80 printer to a PC, etc. Michael E. Webb Gainesville, FL
Thank you for the information. Yes indeed, I have a lot more to learn. That is why I am still fascinated by computers after all these years - there's still more.
If we can come up with articles from the TRS-80 point of view of the "dual mode", I will consider your request. I just don't want to cover MS-DOS in this magazine. Maybe, when no one else want anything to do with Big Blue, I'll publish PCTimes. (don't hold your breath!) Ed.
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