The Amstrad CP/M Plus

Frontpage

A in depth book about using CP/M plus on Amstrad computers.

Section 1 Introducing CP/M

1. Chapter 1.
   1. The history of CP/M.
   2. The genesis of the first portable operating system.
   3. The evolution of the concept of the BIOS.
   4. CP/M 1.3, CP/M 1.4 The arrival of the 5 1/4 in. drive and the idea of the disk parameter table.
   5. (CP/M 2.2). MP/M, the multitasking CP/M, The 8088/86 revolutions (CP/M-86).
   6. MSDOS and the market gap.
   7. Concurrent CP/M; the gap widens.
   8. The attempt at a graphics operating system (GSX).
   9. CP/M+, the state of the art. CP/M goes visual (GEM).
   10. The Unix diversion. CP/M-68K
2. Chapter 2.
   1. CP/M computers. The CP/M-lookalikes.
   2. Turbodos, TPM, CDOS, and MSDOS.
   3. The effect of hardware standardisation.
   4. The major software running under CP/M.
   5. Spreadsheets, wordprocessors, and databases.
   6. The arrival of integrated software. CP/M and MSDOS.

Section 2 Using CP/M

1. Chapter 3.
   1. Getting started. How to switch on.
   2. How to copy a disk. How to run a program.
   3. How to type a file.
   4. ..copy a file, ..change disks, ..change the contents of a file, ..delete a file, ..format a disk, etc.etc..
2. Chapter 4.
   1. The CP/M commands. the built-in commands and transients. How to use PIP, SID, MAC, ED, DIR, INITDIR, SHOW SET etc.
3. Chapter 5.
   1. Communications using CP/M. Serial Ports. Parallel ports. Modems etc. Connecting with other computers. The usefullness of PIP. Bstam, Xmodem, Ascom, Modem7, etc.

Section 3 Writing CP/M Software

1. Chapter 6.
   1. The CP/M languages. How to interface with CP/M from a high level language.
   2. How to write well mannered CP/M software.
   3. Dos and donts.
2. Chapter 7.
   1. The BDOS functions and their calls. The BIOS functions and their calls.
3. Chapter 8.
   1. Extending the operating system.
   2. Why use RSXs? How to write RSXs.
   3. Writing a background spooler.
4. Chapter 9.
   1. GSX and how to use it.
   2. Device independence in grahics and the GKS interface.
   3. Writing portable graphical software.

Section 4 Running common CP/M software

1. Chapter 10.
   1. Using BDS C, Small C and Astec C. Using BASIC-E MBASIC and CBASIC.
   2. Using Algol-M and Pascal MT+ etc.
2. Chapter 11.
   1. Using a relocatable macroassembler. Using macros and maintaning a library of routines.

Section 5 CP/M Users referance

• Appendix A The CP/M Assemblers. Macros and pseudoops.
• Appendix B Introduction to BASIC-E the CP/M basic.
• Appendix C The CP/M Plus implementation on the Amstrad 6128 and 8256
• Appendix D The Amstrad Utilities.
• Appendix E The internal working of the CCP - an insight.

Tables of BDOS and BIOS functions

• BDOS Character Functions
• BDOS Drive Functions
• BDOS FCB and Directory Functions
• BDOS Date and Time Functions
• BDOS System Control Block Function
• BDOS System and Miscelleneous Functions
• BDOS Pseudo Functions
• BDOS Character Functions