/ZINC

ZINC is Not CP/M

Primary LanguageAssemblyOtherNOASSERTION

ZINC - ZINC is Not CP/M

CP/M compatibility layer for Agon's MOS.

Usage

Download from releases page zinc.bin(use only latest release) and copy it to mos/ directory of your sd card.

After this you'll have possibility run CP/M applications with zinc command like:

zinc mbasic test

You shouldn't specify file extension for executable file(.com will be added automatically) and directory should no contain files with long file names.

NB! Please don't specify file names with path. It should be executed in directory where CP/M files are(current directory will be used as emulated disk drive).

Using UART1 from CP/M Applications

UART1 is accessible via IOBYTE(you can switch character input/output from terminal emulator to UART1 just changing one byte in RAM).

Before using UART use zinc-setup utility - it's interactive tool for setting UART parameters.

Terminal emulation layer

Currently, it supports "ADM-3a"-like compatible terminal emulation routines(like KayPro or some other computers).

It also allows disable(and re-enable terminal emulation routines) with 27, 255(two bytes, 27 in decimal first, 255 in decimal secord) character sequence. If you disable terminal emulation routines you'll have possibility use all Agon's VDP commands, including graphics, sounds etc. Also you can get back to terminal emulation mode by same sequence.

Control sequences and codes

  • 0x01 - Home cursor

  • 0x07 - Bell(makes single beep)

  • 0x08 - move cursor left on one character

  • 0x0C - move cursor right on one character

  • 0x14 - move cursor up on one character

  • 0x16 - move cursor left on one character

  • 0x17 - move cursor right on one character

  • 0x18 - clean current line(after current cursor position)

  • 0x1A - clean screen

  • 0x1B - ESCAPE control sequences:

    • ESC+= - load cursor position(ESC+=+y-coordinate+x-coordinate)

    • ESC + f - load foreground color(ESC + f + color number as byte)

    • ESC + b - load background color(ESC + b + color number as byte)

    • ESC+0xFF - toggle terminal emulation(enable or disable it)

Known incompatibilities

  • BBCBasic V - produces CP/M error on almost any non vanilla BDOS implementation(source code shows that it was developed mostly for runinng under RunCPM).

Honestly, I think It will be easier port it to MOS than fix execution under ZINC.

  • Buffered input can be interrupted with ESC with application termination(instead CTRL+C in vanilla CP/M)

Development

You should use fresh version of agon-ez80asm for building system.

Sources splitted by two parts: loader(also replaces CCP) and EDOS(BDOS+BIOS replacement).

Support me

You can support me via my Ko-Fi page.

License

This project licensed with Nihirash's Coffeeware License.

It isn't hard to respect it.

All third-party projects covered with their own licenses.