ATR8000/8500 SIG Newsletter for November 1985 by Bernie Bennett This article will be a bit shorter this month as I have not had much time to further investigate the CP/M library, and using Secrtary the public domain word processor, this week I reconfigured the default settings without backing up my work and erased my article. Moral of the story, back up regularly and often and especially before configuring Secrtary. The following chart might be useful as a comparison of the power and ease of use of your ATARI ATR MYDOS System, versus CPM and related utilities. Last month I promised this comparison chart of MYDOS and NSWEEP. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- MYDOS COMMAND CPM/ utiltiy or /NSWEEP FUNCTION. AUTORUN.SYS SUBMIT.COM when CONFIG is run, the last question asked is what command would you like exectuted upon system startup? I answered Submit Start . I also have the files SUBMIT.COM, START.SUB, & D.COM on my boot disk. my boot sdisk. My start File looks like this: D D B: The above sequence displays the directory with file size and disk space remaining drives A & B. A DIRECTORY DIR built-in Command B RUN CARTRIDGE no equivalent necessary C COPY Files PIP utility NSWEEP accomplishes this with many useful options including mass copying of selected 'tagged' files. D DELETE w/wild cards and /N ERA built in command or NSWEEP can option is powerful but not quite be used to mass delete copies. as friendly as NSWEEP. E RENAME wildcard opt. REN built in command or NSWEEP F LOCK File wildcard and /N STAT drivename:filename=r/o G UNLOCK File wildcard and /N STAT drivename:filename=r/w CP/M will reset r/o (read only) status on a drive or file so this is just a temporary safeguard. When copying using NSWEEP, a r/o file will cause errors. H Write DOS DDSYSGEN utility I FORMAT Disk DDINIT J Duplicate Disk(sector copier) PIP or NSWEEP can copy all files. There may also be sector copiers too. K Binary Save SAVE built in command L Binary Load Enter name of executable COM file M Run at Address Not in same way N Create MEMSAV Not necessary O System & Drive Configuration Config.Com or DDSYSGEN P Disk Density Set Not necessary Q Set Default Diectory User areas can be set with USER. PIP, STAT, DDT, & SAVE, or NSWEEP must be used to move files from the default user area 0. R Create Dir S Set Ramdisk # Not used V Toggle Write Verify -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The above chart may not be complete, and additions to or comments on it would be appreciated. My point is that in two programs ATARI DOS and it's logical extension MYDOS offers one of the most powerful operating systems for a micro computer. A copy utility which allows tagging similar to NSWEEP and useful for one drive ATARI systems is COMPUTE Magazine's Polycopy. The ATR 8500 manual is a much improved work over my (early) ATR 8000 manual (In fact the old ATR's manual was mostly technical and the new's Appendices seem to cover the topics it did). The new manual is a much better introduction to CP/M and benefits from the upgrades made to the ATR 8000 CP/M especially the CONFIG.COM program. The manual does outline the features of the 8500, they include an additional terminal serial port, leaving the RS 232 port available for a modem. In addition there is a Z80 expansion bus, for further peripherals. A call to SWP this week indicated testing is still going on for a case for the system which will pass FCC testing for RF interference. The system is available now as boards, with power supply if desired. I will have an opportunity to receive material in KAYPRO format for editing for a weekly newspaper column I prepare for my church. If I can edit and revise it using Secrtary, I will advise you. Also upcomming is adjusting your drive speed. Bye