Beginner's question

[JanChrisKlein]

Hello,

totally new to CP/M and retro computing ... I could use some starter advice...
I've got a PCB V 2.2 fully populated. So far all I have managed to do was flash 'zloader.hex' (Z80-Retro/images) into the ROM.
Nothing on the SDcard. No Raspi connected. Jumpers are set as per default. And all I get is:

Z80 ZIOS 2.1.0
2000-01-01 00:00.00

and a blinking square. Time and date never change.
The prompt in itself is kind of a success but won't keep me entertained forever.
I can't seem to enter anything here, so I don't see a chance to prepare the SDcard.
The Raspi, as I understood it, is an alternative way to boot from but I wouldn't know how to do that and I also wouldn't know how to prepare the Raspi for that role.

So, my problems couldn't be more basic, I guess. Any advice?

Christoph

[peterw8102]

Hi Christoph, you're definitely getting close if you got the output above.

I've made a few bug fixes since I uploaded the hex file you're using. Could you try the version I've just added to the repo? images/zloader.hex.

When you run that it should report version 2.1.3.

Pete

[JanChrisKlein]

Hi Pete,
thanks a lot for Your rapid response. I now have ...

Z80 ZIOS 2.1.2
2024-01-03 22:08.05

Cfg Sw                   07 - Console: VDU. Boot ZLoader
SDCard1                  YES
SDCard2                  YES
Video                    NO
PIO                      NO

>

... and I can type in commands and set my clock :)

I have also been able to send hex files (like 'cpm22.hex') to the Z80.
What doesn't work yet is actually starting CP/M:

> bos?
ID NAME     DV SDADDR   LOAD  LEN EXEC FL
03 CP/M     00 00002000 DB00 2300 F10C 81
02 CP/M     00 00002000 DB00 2300 F10C 81
> bos 02
Image: CP/M

after which nothing happens.
Are the values given in the 'WB' line still valid?

WB 3 0:A DB00 2300 F10C 01 CP/M

Am I missing something else? Are we there yet? ;)

Christoph

[peterw8102]

Use:

WI 0:A DD00 FE00

and

WB 3 0:A DD00 2100 F30C 01 CP/M

I shaved 512 bytes of the size of the BIOS. Let me know if that works and I'll fix the documentation. I packed away my hardware to make room for Christmas and I haven't set it up again yet so can't test this myself.

[JanChrisKlein]

Ooookay ... getting there, thanks again! I now got CP/M going :)
What I am now struggling with is filling my disk:
Under "installing CP/M" under the topic "Loading applications" You are mentioning a file "cpm22apps.pkg". It's supposed to be in the "images" folder, but I can't find it there. Did it move?

And another question: how many disks should there be? When I start CP/M I am on drive "A". I can switch to "B", "C", "D" but when I reach "E" I get "Bdos Err On E: Select". Shouldn't there be 16 drives?

Christoph

[JanChrisKlein]

I've downloaded the .pkg-file and installed it as per instructions. Worked well, lots of CP/M tools now on "A:".
One small thing: There is one file without name and extension which doesn't seem right ... ?
Don't know how it got there and I don't know how to remove it.

Christoph

[peterw8102]

Glad you got there, I've been updating the documentation to make it easier for others in future.

I don't know where that 'no name' file has come from. What do you get when you run dir, dirx and stat *.*?

[JanChrisKlein]

Well, I do occasionally screw up ;)
I've done the whole procedure more than one time and I was not always successful...
(by the way: is there a definitive way to bring an SDcard back to its factory state?)

I've noticed an error while downloading 'cpm22apps.pkg':

a>download
................................
................................
|
======File Length Error======

a>59
59?

a>A:DOWNLOAD CR.COM
................................
................|
OK

(always at the very start).
Right now the download doesn't seem to work at all
(LED1 and the LED on the SDCard module are lighting up permanently).

Christoph

[JanChrisKlein]

I found out how to get rid of my "noname" file (easy, really: 'ERA *. ', with a space as the
file extension).

Chris

[peterw8102]

It looks like you're typing the command download on the command line then pasting the contents of the pkg file. Don't enter the command! Just paste the contents to the file at the a> prompt.

This is what I see:

a>save 4 download.com
a>dir
A: DOWNLOAD COM
a>A:DOWNLOAD ASM.COM
................................
................................
|
OK

a>
a>A:DOWNLOAD CR.COM
................................
................|
OK

a>

[JanChrisKlein]

Oh, and there is still a little quirk in Your instructions, I think:

Once you have all this information you can add an entry to the boot menu with:

WB 3 0:A DD00 2300 F30C 01 CP/M

should be

WB 3 0:A DD00 2100 F30C 01 CP/M

shouldn't it?

Also, setting the image to '3' means that booting into CP/M directly won't work,
because ZLOADER seems to be looking for the CP/M installation at image '1' (?).
(easily remedied by writing 'WB 1 0:A ...', of course.

Christoph

[peterw8102]

If you use a number other than 1 then you can 'boot' that system using BOS n, in the example above BOS 3.

An ID of 1 is useful if you want the system to automagically boot into, say, CP/M. In this case setting the DIP switches to 'Boot OS image 1 from the SDCard'. I tend to have a set of different boot images for different CP/M configurations. I've played with using alternative CCPs for example.

[JanChrisKlein]

dirx
Name    Ext Bytes   Name    Ext Bytes   Name    Ext Bytes   Name    Ext Bytes
              10K ! ED      COM    8K ! MBASIC  COM   24K ! SUBMIT  COM    2K
CR      COM    6K ! FORMAT  COM    2K ! MOUNT   COM    2K ! UNCR    COM   10K
DDT     COM    6K ! LBREXT  COM   10K ! PIP     COM    8K ! UNZIP   COM    4K
DDTZ    DOC   30K ! LIB     COM    8K ! PMARC   COM   12K ! XSUB    COM    2K
DIRX    COM    4K ! LINK    COM   16K ! PMEXT   COM   14K ! ZSID    COM   10K
DOWNLOADCOM    2K ! LOAD    COM    2K ! RMAC    COM   14K
DUMP    COM    2K ! MAC     COM   12K ! STAT    COM    6K
26 File(s), occupying 226K of 4016K total capacity
484 directory entries and 3790K bytes remain on A:
a>

This happened with both of my boards, b.t.w. ...
Chris

[JanChrisKlein]

I've downloaded the .pkg-file and installed it as per instructions. Worked well, lots of CP/M tools now on "A:". One small thing: There is one file without name and extension which doesn't seem right ... ? Don't know how it got there and I don't know how to remove it.

Christoph