Deutsche Version lesen (get German version)

What is the ZNODE 51 and why BBS ?

All the programs that I collected have been testet at least once by myself and I hav already sorted out the rubbish. Some tools have even been souped up or fixed due to my inputs to the programmers. It's rather difficult to describe a collection that is the result of 10-15 years of CP/M collectors' activities.
I have put this unique compilation of the latest CP/M programs on 85 disks of 700K capacity each and have burnt them into the pits of a CD-ROM, the ZNODE 51 CD
.
Many of those programs rely on ZCPR that had to be painfully installed in the free versions available with CBIOS adaption and CP/M 2.2 code tuning.
ZCPR is an extension of the command interpreter of CP/M-80 that had originally been written in 8080 code, wasting lots of memory space in the scarce 64K available. Replacing this 8080 code by elegant slim Z80 code made room for a unified environment and remedied the worst thing within CP/M - the need to install the terminal codes for each and every program that made use of absolute cursor adressing. In the early days, only programmers could adopt their systems to ZCPR. Only with the advent of the fully automatic NZ-COM (loaded dynamically into memory just like a utility) many people could even think about dealing with ZCPR.
Some time went by until Bridger Mitchell wrote the CP/M Plus variant Z3PLUS that also runs well on the CP/M Plus side of Amstrad machines. These automated, so-called Z-Systems implement a TCAP (terminal capability profile) like those standards in UNIX and allow programs to dynamically adapt the screen settings (and more) without the need to install anything. Even the use of block graphic characters made stylish menus possible.

Other features include:

• Named Directories ( instead of M15: e.g. the label TEMP: )
• housekeeping of computer harddisks is made much easier
• an excellent extended search path,
• much improved scripting language far superior to SUBMIT
• conditional command line processing as in UNIX-shells
• "ALIASes" ( short names for complex command lines)
• editable command line history

Beside these files I have collected Infos on CP/M from all over the world, I have sacked the collection of every club I contacted (the complete PCW world collection is included), I collected files for the Amstrad series, the GDR KC computers, and so on.

All in all: a hot bundle of "stuff"! Please check this link to file formats http://www.faq.msxnet.org/suffix.html . It helped me in finding the long sought-for LHA-PMA.EXE for DOS/Windows ! It is a command-line tool, but does a fine job!

I held a lecture at the European Vintage Computer Festival 2.0 and saved my screenshots into a Powerpoint slideshow, that may be downloaded here.
Here you can see a Web-View of the (German) Installation of NZ-COM.

There was also a lecture on dBase 2.5x, then still version 2.50, saved as a Powerpoint file. Please download here

Helmut Jungkunz

Z-Node51 CD Order