ZCPR Version 1.0 Release Notice Greetings, Everyone, I am very pleased to announce (appropriately at Christmas time, so Merry Christmas) the formal release of ZCPR -- a Z80- based Command Processor Replacement. This program replaces the CP/M CCP and greatly extends its capabilities. Some of you may have heard of CCPZ and MCPZ during various discussions. For those who have heard of these programs, ZCPR is the Baseline System to be released into the public domain. It was derived from CCPZ Version 4.0, and is an enhancement of this. It contains many internal differences which are not readily noticable to the CCPZ user, and some new key human engineering design changes over CCPZ Version 4.0 (specifically in the SAVE and REN commands). For those of you who have been considering design changes, including the unsanctioned Version 4.1 and numerous Version 4.2 implementations (these fell out of the control of CCP-GROUP), ZCPR Version 1.0 is the released baseline which CCP-GROUP has decided upon for public release. There are several internal "problems" with CCPZ Version 4.0 which have been resolved to the satisfaction of the recent working majority of CCP-GROUP. Hence, I (and I believe the majority of the above- named CCP-GROUP subset) strongly recommend backing up to ZCPR Version 1.0 and implementing your modifications from that. Now, getting back to everyone in general, ZCPR is the result of a Group Effort by CCP-GROUP, a somewhat closely-nit group of individuals. For the individual credits, they are listed in the ASM and DOC files, and I sincerely apologize if I omitted anyone. If I did, the corrections will be issued later. ZCPR is the result of several months of rather diligent and fascinating work. It completely replaces the Console Command Processor of CP/M and will only run on Z80-based CP/M microcomputer systems. CP/M is required in order to run it, since a "heart" of CP/M, the BDOS, is NOT provided with ZCPR. The MAC Assembler is required to assemble it. So far, based upon both user feedback and our own experiences, we feel that ZCPR is a significant contribution to the Public Domain, and everyone who has used it greatly prefers it over standard CP/M. ZCPR is being released for Public Distribution through the SIG/M User's Group of the Amateur Computer Group of NJ. In the spirit of Public Domain software, ZCPR is by no means a panacea, but it IS a very nice stepping stone, and you are encouraged to feel free to modify it to please yourselves. Future releases of ZCPR are quite possible, but said releases from CCP-GROUP should not happen for some time. ZCPR has been extensively tested, and, although no software can be claimed to be perfect unless it is absolutely trivial, CCP-GROUP knows of no functional errors in ZCPR Version 1.0. Page 1 ZCPR Version 1.0 Release Notice For those interested in pursuing acquisition of ZCPR further, I recommend reviewing the HELP File (ZCPR.HLP in the SIG/M Release). The opening Information Section gives a fair description of some, but not all, of the interesting features supported by ZCPR and NOT found in the CP/M CCP. It is roughly 16K long and should not take too long to print out. The next page of this message presents several displays and some information on what files compose the ZCPR system. CCP-GROUP hopes you enjoy using ZCPR. Richard Conn Page 2 ZCPR Version 1.0 Release Notice XDIR2 Listing of All Relevant Files ZCPR FILES ... ET AL XDIR II Version 4.8, Vertical Listing by File Type User Number: 0, File Attributes: Non-System Filename.Typ Size K Filename.Typ Size K Filename.Typ Size K -------- --- ------ -------- --- ------ -------- --- ------ 0 MAC .COM 12 ZCPR .MSG 6 BDOSLOC .ASM 2 SYSGEN .COM 2 ZCPR .WS 40 ZCPR .ASM 52 ZCPR .DOC 46 ZCPRMSG .WS 6 CPM .BIN 12 ZCPR .HLP 16 B: 34 Entries & 14 Files - 172K Bytes Remaining File Data: 11 Files - 194K Bytes Displayed CRCK Values for Key Files File: ZCPR .WS CRC = A2 C2 File: ZCPR .DOC CRC = 94 B7 File: ZCPR .HLP CRC = 26 9D File: ZCPR .ASM CRC = 7A 46 File: BDOSLOC .ASM CRC = EB D4 Explanation of Files ZCPR.ASM -- Source to ZCPR; must be assembled by MAC and customized by user for his particular system ZCPR.HLP -- HELP File for ZCPR; can be read by HELP Version 2.0 or simply TYPEd out; read this to see a fair summary of what ZCPR can do ZCPR.DOC -- Full Documentation on ZCPR; this includes installation notes, customization notes, and detail which expands upon the ZCPR.HLP File ZCPR.WS -- WordStar File from which ZCPR.DOC was created ZCPR.MSG -- Introductory message on ZCPR ZCPRMSG.WS -- WordStar File from which ZCPR.MSG was created BDOSLOC.ASM -- BDOS and CCP Locator; this program is handy during initial installation of ZCPR and its use is documented in ZCPR.DOC Page 3