Cosmos
COSMOS is a personal COSt MOnitoring System written by KSL. COSMOS was initially released in 2006, whereas the latest version (v.25) was released in summer 2020.
COSMOS is a personal business application similar to the MSDOS-era PC applications and one of the most recent projects developed for CP/M-80. COSMOS runs under CP/M 2.2 (the Dobbertin 63 KB TPA version) and is built upon the mouse based graphics user interface as pioneered by Xerox at Palo Alto and popularized by Apple with the Lisa and Macintosh computers. COSMOS can be used to edit the daily income, plan the monthly expenses and perform trial and error analyses in order to maximize the annual profit. A full annual project of COSMOS, including the user attachments, the user block of invoices, the summary files as well as the user agenda notices can hardly run on a standard CPC6128 as it requires minimum 350 KB of disc space. In order to process and store the aforementioned data, COSMOS makes full use of the CP/M memory resources and CPC's peripherals. Thus, in order to properly run COSMOS, the following configuration is suggested: +800 KB FD, +512 KB RAM, +20 MB HD, +RS232C, +DM printer, +CTM monitor (for the screen saver), +AMX Mouse. Notice that the latter configuration resembles to a well equipped 8086/8088 PC computer.
To download the latest version of COSMOS (v.25/Summer 2020) use the link below. Boot CP/M using the original COSMOS disk and execute A>SETUP.COM.
By using the setup installation utility of COSMOS the user can initialize any annual project or start a demo project in order to become familiar with the COSMOS user interface and functions. As far as the controls are concerned, Cursor keys or Mouse can be used in order to control the pointer. [F0] key simulates the left button of the mouse, whereas [F.] key simulates the right button of the mouse. Left button can be used for (Yes), whereas the right button can be used for (No),(Next) or (On-Board) help. ESC key can be used to escape.
Upon installing the application in drive B or HD20 it is suggested to execute COSMOS using all the available extra RAM (no RAM load minimization) and using a new empty boot disk in drive A as the redundant disk (user level software RAID-1 operation).
