ATR8000 NEWSLETTER FOR FEBRUARY 1984

Howdy from the Heart of Texas! The response to the First ATR8000
Newsletter was excellent, so we are going to expandded format!  We now
have four pages  Available in this Newsletter, and I would like to see
other members of the ATRSIG contribute thier comments, suggestions, and
experiences with the ATR for future, issues.  If you would like to
contribute to the Newsletter, mail Your article to:(now invalid).

On to business.  Steve at SWP had told me that MYDOS 3.0ll and 3.16
were ready for release.  The release disk will have a version of
AMPLUS18 that will autodial wih the Hayes Smartmoden.    $10 updating
fee applies to these.

There is some new Ramdisk software available from SWP for CoPower
owners.  Send your CPM86 release diskette, #1 of 2, back to SWP, with a
check for $10 for the updating service, to receive this software.  I
have heard that it allows you to redefine the Ramdisk as any drive.   
Also, you can write system tracks to it, which, means you can redefine
the Ramdisk as Drive A:!  Also, aparently when you hit the resett
button. The data in the Ramdisk is not lost!  You can specify not to
overwrite the directory tracks when restarting the Ramdisk, and that
means unless you power the system off and on, the Ramdisk will retain
information in it!  This should be a very powerful addition to some
already slick software.

Several people have asked me about running ZCPR2 an the ATR.   ZCPR
is a Z80 Command Processor for CP/M.  It allows customization of CP/M:
You can remove any command that might be unsafe to leave an an
unsecured system, such as a BBS. For example the 'ERA', 'REN, and
'SAVE' commands in particular.  Also, ZCPF adds some really nice
features, such as telling you what files you are erasing when you do an
'ERA' command.  ZCPR is very fast to get going.  It does *NOT* require
that you be an assembly programmer to get it going.  A few things might
help you through the installation.

First, go through the ZCPC.ASM file with an Editor and change any
equate to specify the extact configuraton of the CCP you desire.  Only
1 equate is really esential, CPRLOC. This is the address of the
beginning of CCP.  ZCPR comes with a programthat is supossed to tell
you what the beginning location of your CCP is.  But I have found on
the ATR this does not work correctly.  After searching around, I found
that CPRLOC should be set to 'D400'.  All other equates in ZCPR can be
left alone, and you will get all the default settings.    Next,
assemble ZCPR using MAC, and then include it into your SYSTEM.SWP file.
*USE A COPY OF YOUR RELEASE DISK*  This is very important in case you
have problems.    Never, never, write onto a release diskette!

Use the following commands to include ZCPR.HEX into your SYSTEM.SWP file:
    PIP SYSTEM.BAK=SYSTEM.SWP[V]   First make a backup of SYSTEM.SWP
    DDT SYSTEM.SWP
   -IZCPR.HEX
   -R4580
   -GO    (Note: the - is the prompt in DDT, don't type it!)
   SAVE 64 SYSTEM.SWP

There you have it!  You have now installed ZCPR.HEX into SYSTEM.SWP.
The next and final step is for you to completely re-gen your system
using DDSYSGEN. You will need to use option 3 to read the SYSTEM.SWF
file in, then apply any patches needed on your system using the
symbolic patch option.  These might include double  sided 8" disks, or
a ONEDSK Patch, etc.  After applying any patches necessary  use the
option 2 to write the system tracks out to the disk.  Then reboot, and
you will be running on ZCPR.   I have found it to be much more friendly
CCP than the standard Digital Research one.

     If You don't have MAC, the AACE  CP/M Library has a fully blown
copy of ZCPR.HEX in it. Just get this disk, and include it into your
SYSTEM.SWP file as above.


Up until January, I was running an ATARI based Amis Bulletin Board on
my system.  Because of the problems with MYDOS.  I had to have an Atari
850 interface to make this work.  Finally, after much soul searching
decided it was time to move the Bulletin Board from the Atari to the
ATR's Z8O.  I spoke with Steve at Customer Service about this, and he
gave me an interesting hint. The ATR's CP/M has included in the BIOS an
interface to the RS-232 port.  The interface is called the UCI:. or
User Console 1. He Suggested trying: STAT CON:-UCI: I did, and it did
not work right off the bat.  But, after much searching, I found that
the IBAUD parameters in the CP/M DDSYSGEN controls the baud rate for
the port, and the default is l200 baud. So, I changed the baud rate by
entering an  'A0' for IBAUD and a '34' for the IBAUD+I, as is described
in the CP/M supplement. I then set my Hayes Smartmodem up to autoanswer
the phone, and poof, my remote caller had complete control over the
system!

 Now this was a great accomplishment, as it showed that the ATR could
indeed support a remote user.  But in the RCPM/RBBS environment, the
Sysop should have control over the console in addition to the remote
user.   The method above completely kills the Atari local console in
order to provide service to the remote user.  A program called 'BYE' is
available on most RBBS systems, and it was a matter of getting the
source for that, updating it to wark with the ATR, and installing it. 
This version of BYE, called BYEATR, gives the ATR8000 System a complete
'Dual Console'.    The dual console is the local terminal and the
remote caller.  Either can type, both see what the other typed, and
both see any output.

The BYE command works via an interesting trick, possibly useful in
other communications applications, such as a terminal program. What it
does is to first select the local Atari console, issue a 'CONSTAT' call
to see if any input is comming from the Atari, if so, get the byte with
a 'CONIN' call, echo the byte, then select the modem via 'IOBYTE' at
location 3 in memory. Echo the byte to the modem,  and then reverse the
process by issuing a 'CONSTAT' call to the modem. So both users see
what each other types, and both users see everything the system sends. 
It does this trick by patching into the standard CPM vectors for
CONSTAT, CONIN, and CONOUT, some additional code. This code is part of
the BYE command that hides up in high memory.  The BYE code occupies
the top 6 or 7 hundred Hex words of the TPA, and hides itself so as to
be invisible to the user.
       On to another topic.  Several people have express interest in
getting together a list of programs known to work an the ATR.  As a
start, I am going to list here all of the programs I have run
Successfully, on both the CoPower and the CP/M.

CPM  2.2:
MICROSOFT BASIC COMPILER      MICROSOFT ASSEMBLER, MAC
MICROSOFT BASIC INTERPRETER   DIGITAL RESEARCH ASSEMBLER, M8O
BDS 'C' COMPILER              ZCPR
LU (LIBRARY UTILITY)          ZCPR2
LTYPE                         BYE (RBBS SIGNOFF, HEAVILY MODIFIED)
SDIR                          RBBS417 (NEW VERSION. WRITTEN IN C)
XDIR                          XMODEM (HEAVILY MODIFIED)
SPIP                          WORDSTAR
DU (DISK UTILITY)             CBASIC
UN-ERASE                      ZSID

CPM86:
CBASIC                        DBASEII (USE ADM3A OPTION)

As you can tell, I have not even attempted to use MSDOS as of yet. I
am so far behind an all the other development work I am doing.

I would like each and every ATR8000 SIG member to send me a list of
known running software on the ATR, for CPM 2.2, CPM86. and MSDOS.  This
list will greatly help people who have not yet spent big bucks testing
out software.  Also, alist of any software known *NOT* to run would be
interesting.

When the ATRSIG's copy of the SIG/M Library comes in. It will be an
interesting job finding out what runs and what does not.

We would appreciate anyone who has any PUBLIC DOMAIN software that
runs on the ATR8000 to contribute it to the AACE ATR Library.  The CP/M
Library currently consists of about 40 disks.  We are charging $1.50
per disk for copying charges so any of you ATRSIG members outside of
Austin can get us to do the copying for you.  Just supply the
diskettes, preformatted.  Austin AACE members can come to a Disk Party
and browse the Library and make copies for themselves.  We will publish
an index of the entire Library as soon as the SIG/M Library arrives.

 One last thing, have you ever thought your disks sounded 'rachety'
or noisey under CP/M? This has to do with the track to track access
time.  If you would like to experiment, get into DDSYSGEN, generate a
custom system using option 3, and  then add the following change to
Your Custom System:
 RATEA 10
 RATEB 10
 RATEC 10
 RATED 10
These are described in full in the ATR CPM Supplement.  But let it
suffice to say that what this does is to change the track to track,
access time down to 6ms for a 5 1/4" disk, 3ms for a 8" disk. The
default for the rate is 12, which comes out to be 4 times slower than
the 10.  Read the manual for full details, but I promise, you will like
the change!  It made my system so much faster and quieter I could not
believe it.

Thanks for expressing so much interest in the AACE ATR-SIG!  Keep in
touch.

Happy Computing
Marc Newman