Date   : Wed, 28 Mar 1984 06:45:57-MST
From   : Rick Conn <RCONN@SIMTEL20.ARPA>
Subject: ZCPR3 Intro

       In all of my excitement during the past several months, I have
been making references from time to time on the creation of ZCPR3.  ZCPR3
is now well underway, and beta testing by a volunteer test group out
in Silicon Valley will begin in the next few days.

       ZCPR3 is not yet complete, but it is quite operational in terms of
its major features.  Only one minor bug with 8-character passwords
exists at this time (to my knowledge), and I am using it daily now in
5 different versions (2 different versions for software development, each
version on a different machine, 2 applications-oriented versions running
dBASE II and Multiplan, and one RCP/M version).

       I have received a lot of interest and support from a number of
people and groups in this project, and, to satisfy your own curiosity
and answer many of the questions I have been receiving, I have
prepared ten messages (not counting this one) which will be transmitted to
INFO-CPM today on the subject of ZCPR3.  For those of you not interested,
each message will reference ZCPR3 and a message number in the subject line,
so you can flush it without reading it.

       The first message is an introduction to ZCPR3 which simply states
an outline of the contents of the following messages.  It is not detailed
at all.  Each of the following 9 messages concentrates on one topic area
of ZCPR3.  Live terminal sessions are included in these messages to illustrate
by example the concepts discussed.  You are invited to study these messages,
and I believe many of your questions will be answered.  For those of you
who want to know even more, I will be providing a service (for a brief time)
which I haven't tried before.

       Sometime within the next two weeks, I will be bringing a ZCPR3
remote access system online.  When it comes up, I will post the phone number
and access code to the net with some instructions on its use.  You will be
invited to log onto it and try out the demonstrations prepared on it.
There will also be an electonic mail facility which you may use to send me
comments and suggestions, etc.  The tenth message which follows is an
example of a "secure" ZCPR3 system, and the remote access system you will
be using will support features very similar to the "secure" system you see
discussed in the 10th message.

       For those who have even more interest in the topic, I will be speaking
on ZCPR3 at the Trenton Computer Festival on Saturday, April 14 at 11:00AM.
This presentation will be more of an overview in nature, but the
opportunity to ask technical questions will present itself.  Also, there
will be a closed meeting of RCP/M SYSOPs at the festival, and I'll be giving
a brief talk on the use of ZCPR3 for RCP/M application for those of you invited
to this meeting.

       Enjoy the time to come!

               Rick Conn