I have been attempting to find some improvements to the typical WinApe CP/M 3.0 operation. I compiled a list of fixes that I will share with you. Of course, I made only a limited contribution, the whole idea being that it is a good package for a casual user that wants to enjoy CP/M more and a proof that things could be made better even in the CP/M days.
The files included in the attachement are:
- a bootable system image that I prepared using the most efficient, documented way (fast CP/M loader on standard disk with 720 K disk size support preloaded); the bootable disk image includes a good selection of apps such as PIP, TE (the fast text editor) and others;
- another application disk image for 720K (you can add/delete files, it is important that it is a large disk);
My contibution is:
- an optimized set of self executable .sub files designed to load an app and files from either drive A or B, using the classical app name + file name syntax;
- an optimized set of keys assigned to each major commercial application and tested to work properly;
- the same optimized self executable .sub files that autostart any application with the required key assignments;
What kind of key assignments have been considered:
- the best combination of cursor keys, shift and cursor keys, control and cursor keys;
- where possible, in wordstar and perfectwrite for instance, jumping to the next word and line in the text;
- common dos commands for shortcuts in many applications (control-o is open, control-h is replace, control-f is find, control-s is save, control-v is paste, control x is delete or cut....);
- multiplan or supercalc key shorcuts work closer to modern-day Excel in data entry mode;
The purpose of the entire set of disk images presented is to have a set of pre-made disks and application configurations that can make CP/M operation in well known apps to be as simple and pleasant as possible. The covered app list is: Multiplan, Wordstar 3.0, Supercalc, Supercalc2, PerfectWrite.
Enjoy! :D