EX15


EX15 is a relatively minor update to EX14 to allow it to execute properly
under Jim Lopushinski's superb LBRDISK.  EX15 will now also execute correctly
under SmartKey II.

The problem with EX14 was that it assumed that CCP (or ZCPR) was located 2K
bytes below the BDOS address when EX14 received control.  If some other
high-loading system extension such as SETRSX and/or LBRDISK has been loaded
before EX14, that assumption was erroneous and, when EX14 attempted to
transfer to CCP at the assumed location, strange and wondrous things happened
in you system!

The advantage in using EX with LBRDISK lies in the fact that SUB files
generally waste a great deal of disk space.  SUB files are usually short, on
the order of 128-256 bytes, text files but, due to CP/M's allocation rules,
they require an absolute minimum of 1K bytes of disk space.  Many systems use
a group size considerably larger than 1K bytes and, on such systems, SUB files
waste even more disk space.  By packing the SUB files into an archive (either
an LBR file or an ARC file) and using LBRDISK to execute them out of the
archive, large amounts of disk space can be saved.

Packing all SUB files into a single archive file should be especially valuable
on fixed disk systems such as the Kaypro 10.  Such systems usually have large
group sizes (4K bytes for the Kaypro 10) and the amount of disk space wasted
by SUB files is considerably larger than on systems with smaller group sizes. 
On a Kaypro 10, the savings would probably be on the order of 3K bytes or
greater for each SUB file in the archive after the first.

There is another, relatively minor, change between EX15 and EX14.  I could
never see any particularly good reason for REQUIRING the a SUB file have a
file type of .SUB so I eliminated the requirement in EX15.  The default file
type, used if no file type is specified by the user, is still .SUB but the
user may specify any file type.

In addition to the files in this library, you will need MAC, ED, and either
ZSID or SID to assemble EX15 (or EX14 for that matter.)  The SUB file,
EX15.SUB, is used to assemble EX15 and create EX15.COM.  It is currently setup
for use under a prior version of EX running under a slightly modified ZCPR2. 
It also uses ZSID to create EX15.COM primarily because I use ZSID more than I
do SID.  Either will work for this purpose.


Don A. Williams, AKUG (Arizona Kaypro Users' Group