Date   : Sun, 21 Nov 1982 17:05:00-CST
From   : mknox@Utexas-11
Subject: Model-II

There are a number of CP/M implementations for the Model-II.  Briefly, (and
in my own humble opinion):

o  P&T -- I agree with your complaints, but feel that theirs is the best
       overall product for the price.  The provide very good documentation
       (a rare bird indeed).  They support a variety of disk drives, both
       hard and soft.  They provide a good supply of useful, well written
       utilities.  And they provide good customer support (except for certain
       policies like not providing source).  Only one other complaint;  the
       double density disk format they chose is a little strange, 16 sectors
       of 512 bytes  (most use 15 x 512).  This does provide more storage
       than others, but is very hard to read on other machines.

o  Lifeboat -- The other current major supplier.  Not as good an implementation
       as P&T, and with the usual Lifeboat support (one customer I know of is
       still waiting for an answer to his question after 2 years!).  Does
       support 8 x 1k disk sectors.  

o  CPU SHOP and FMG -- sold a lot of copies early on, but have mostly faded
       away, at least as a CP/M Model-II supplier.  More expensive.

o  ATON -- one of the best jobs of fully utilizing the Model-II hardware that
       I have seen.  Only a little more expensive.  Fair documentations,
       actually quite good for a hacker, not near as good as P&T if you are
       a business turnkey type.  The ATON version(s) support disk caching
       through extra memory cards, and also concurrent operations using
       multiple banked memory cards.  I have no direct experience running
       the system (called JOBSTREAM), but careful review of the manuals
       makes it look like it was done by a hacker who knows his way around
       a system.  ATON has only had it out a few months.

Conclusion:  I'd still go with the P&T.  Most products now support it (Word-
       star, dBASE, etc.), where some of the other implementations may require
       some effort to install application packages.  [Side note:  the P&T
       makes full use of the CRT capabilities, much better than Lifeboat]
       I am recommending P&T to those who ask me; and using it as a base
       for a Model-16 or Model-II Enhanced CP/M-68K implementation.