22-05-2022, 02:08 PM
Peter Broughton produced an updated boot disk with many new features, I personally use it all the time. He even produced a new disk format for the bee, referred to as a DS84 with a capacity of 784k. It was intended to be used for the Prem 128k thats been updated to a 512k Premium or a 64k CIAB thats been updated to 256k. There are a number of mods that can double the speed of the original 3.375mhz to 6.75mhz but you need to upgrade to a Z80B, though generally a Zilog Z80A can handle the increased speed. You may also need to use a higher speed PIO. My PP+ has had the mod done (originally done back in 1990 to the base board) and running the PB system, I just use SPEED F for Fast and SPEED S for normal.
I would not recommend Wordbee for writing your text but to use WordStar in Non-Document mode as it saves files in pure txt format, unlike Wordbee. EDASM was made run from a ROM on the early based bee's and the disk version runs much the same also. You know you can run a CF system in ubee512 and turn the speed up using, say -x 10 and it would run at 10khz. I do all my Turbo Pascal, Bascom and C via ubee512 using a CF image, like
ubee512.exe --video-type=hw --rom1=bn56cf8_059.rom --ide-a0=cfboot_0_59_cf8_128k_1p_CHS_490_4_32.hdd-76-4-32
with the ROM and CF image in repository. That image only has 1 partition (drive) but another 3 x 5mb partitions can be added. You can also have a floppy image attached, in the above case adding at the end -a turbo_pascal_ds80.dsk would actually add it as dive B:. If you had 4 partitions on the CF it would be added as E:, that can be a bit confusing.
As for Z80 assembly, I do it all via Windows using Z80ASM.COM ( https://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fi...16866.html ) and then transfer the file to a 'bee disk image for testing.
Yes there were quite a few different Microbee models but the BASIC that runs on them all is basically the same (there was a few minor exceptions) be it ROM or disk version. So most arcade games for example run out of BASIC but as Z80 assembled files (*.BEE) rather than as a Basic (*.MWB) file. Disk based Microbees all run CP/M (well updated ZCPR versions) so all the *.COM files just conform to the requirements of CP/M but things like Screen addy, keyboard access, sound, colour etc all Microbee specific. So producing a *.BEE file with an ORG of 0900h should run on all Microbees, with maybe the exception of the 256TC as it has a very different keyboard access.
I would not recommend Wordbee for writing your text but to use WordStar in Non-Document mode as it saves files in pure txt format, unlike Wordbee. EDASM was made run from a ROM on the early based bee's and the disk version runs much the same also. You know you can run a CF system in ubee512 and turn the speed up using, say -x 10 and it would run at 10khz. I do all my Turbo Pascal, Bascom and C via ubee512 using a CF image, like
ubee512.exe --video-type=hw --rom1=bn56cf8_059.rom --ide-a0=cfboot_0_59_cf8_128k_1p_CHS_490_4_32.hdd-76-4-32
with the ROM and CF image in repository. That image only has 1 partition (drive) but another 3 x 5mb partitions can be added. You can also have a floppy image attached, in the above case adding at the end -a turbo_pascal_ds80.dsk would actually add it as dive B:. If you had 4 partitions on the CF it would be added as E:, that can be a bit confusing.
As for Z80 assembly, I do it all via Windows using Z80ASM.COM ( https://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fi...16866.html ) and then transfer the file to a 'bee disk image for testing.
Yes there were quite a few different Microbee models but the BASIC that runs on them all is basically the same (there was a few minor exceptions) be it ROM or disk version. So most arcade games for example run out of BASIC but as Z80 assembled files (*.BEE) rather than as a Basic (*.MWB) file. Disk based Microbees all run CP/M (well updated ZCPR versions) so all the *.COM files just conform to the requirements of CP/M but things like Screen addy, keyboard access, sound, colour etc all Microbee specific. So producing a *.BEE file with an ORG of 0900h should run on all Microbees, with maybe the exception of the 256TC as it has a very different keyboard access.
---------------------------
ChickenMan
ChickenMan