Date : Fri, 11 Feb 1983 00:10:12 EST (Fri)
From : Richard Conn (CENTACS CSSD) <rconn@brl-bmd.arpa>
Subject: ZCPR2 Status and Release Data
As I mentioned earlier today, ZCPR2 has been released as
of last Friday, 4 Mar. I promised more data, so here is a sum-
mary of what is involved in obtaining it.
First, the size. ZCPR2, as I presented it to SIG/M,
covered ten 8" floppy disks. In addition, the latest SYSLIB,
Version 2.4, is required to assemble most of the ZCPR2 utilities,
and the upgrade covers two more disks. A hardcopy of the docu-
mentation would also be helpful, and the five manuals which I
gave to SIG/M total 420 pages (one-sided) and are two inches
thick.
This sounds like a lot, and it is, but you do not need
all of this to bring ZCPR2 up initially. To simply bring a ZCPR2
system up, you need the documentation, Disk 1 (which contains the
source to ZCPR2, its header file, and a sample redirectable I/O
package), and Disk 5 (which contains COM files of the 31 ZCPR2
utility programs and a template around which you can design more
utility programs). This is only two of the twelve disks.
The real problem is in the documentation. Five manuals
were released with ZCPR2, three of which are required to learn
about ZCPR2 and install it. These three manuals are:
1. The Installation Manual. This tells you what
hardware and software is required for installation, how to cus-
tomize ZCPR2 to your liking, how to install ZCPR2 on disk, how to
customize the cold boot routine in the BIOS in order to fully im-
plement ZCPR2, and how to install the utility programs which come
with ZCPR2. This manual is 48 pages long.
2. The Concepts Manual. This manual is a tutorial on
what ZCPR2 and the ZCPR2 System are, what their key features are,
and how ZCPR2 is intended to be used. This manual is 65 pages
long.
3. The User's Guide. This manual is more tutorial on
the ZCPR2 System, describing all the subsystems and utilities
which come as part of the ZCPR2 System. Included in this manual
are the redirectable I/O system, the XDIR3 directory utility, the
library utilities, the Menu Subsystem, the file copy utility, the
command file processors, the utilities which manipulate the named
directories, the ZCPR2 resident commands and their alternates,
and the online documentation system. This manual is 138 pages
long.
To summarize, two disks and three manuals are required to
first bring up the ZCPR2 system. Disks 8, 9, and 10 of the dis-
tribution contain copies of these three manuals in a format sui-
table for printing by Word Star with MailMerge. SIG/M also has a
hard copy of the manuals, and they are working on the details of
how to distribute this.
The other disks in the ZCPR2 distribution are:
Disk 2 - Sources to ZCPR2 Utilities assembled by MAC
Disks 3&4 - Sources to ZCPR2 Utilities assembled
by M80/L80 with SYSLIB 2.4
Disks 6&7 - Help Files; the entire User's Guide is
available as online documentation
There are already three disks in the distribution of SYS-
LIB 2.0, and two disks are available which upgrade these three
from 2.0 to 2.4. These two disks contain a REL file of SYSLIB
2.4, sources to all utilities which changed or were added, Help
Files which were changed, and new SYSLIB manuals. If you wish to
be able to reassemble the ZCPR2 utilities, most require M80/L80
and SYSLIB 2.4.
The other two manuals presented to SIG/M are the User's
Guide for SYSLIB 2.3 (fine for use with 2.....4) and the User and Re-
ference Manual for SYSLIB 2.4.
Summary:
1. To Install the ZCPR2 System you need --
Disk 1 (ZCPR2 Source)
Disk 5 (ZCPR2 Utility COM Files)
Three ZCPR2 Manuals (Disks 8-10 or hard copy)
2. To Modify the ZCPR2 System you need --
Disk 1 (ZCPR2 Source)
Disks 2-4 (ZCPR2 Utility Sources)
Three ZCPR2 Manuals
SYSLIB.REL for SYSLIB 2.4
Two SYSLIB 2.4 Manuals
3. To Fully Implement the ZCPR2 System you need
--
Disk 1 (ZCPR2 Source)
Disks 2-4 (ZCPR2 Utility Sources)
Disk 5 (ZCPR2 Utility COM Files)
Disks 6-7 (ZCPR2 HLP Files)
Disks 8-10 (ZCPR2 Manuals)
SYSLIB 2.0 (3 Disks)
Upgrade to SYSLIB 2.4 (2 Disks)
Hardcopy of ZCPR2 Manuals is nice (420 pages)
Where to get all this stuff? SIG/M is the only complete
answer right now. With LMODEM communication to MIT-MC down right
now, ARPA Net access to the files is out, basically, and I'll
have to check to ensure that current versions are on MIT-MC
first. Sol guessed that it will be 4 to 6 weeks before ZCPR2 is
fully in the SIG/M library, and they are trying to decide how to
deal with hard copy distribution of the manuals, with the idea of
loaning out a manual set to be copied being the key idea right
now. I am talking to four different companies/agencies at this
time to see if anyone is willing to sell ZCPR2 with manuals for a
reasonable price, and I'll keep you posted if anything develops.
Rick