ZCN 1.4 released

[zgedneil]

ZCN is a CP/M-like operating system for the Amstrad NC100/NC150/NC200. It can run most programs which run on CP/M 2.2. You usually need a serial link to install it on a real NC, and preferably a PCMCIA memory card (required on NC100).

The main changes in 1.4 are NC150 support, internal ramdisk support on NC200/NC150, more keyboard layouts supported, preinstalled memory card images for emulators, floppy disk boot on NC200 (of a limited kind), some significant bugfixes for NC200 mostly, and various programs being added/removed.

The web page is here:

https://zgedneil.nfshost.com/zcn.html

[Gryzor]

Ah I'd like to try this some day... 

[robcfg]

I guess this has been asked before, but would it be possible to have ZCN as a rom, substituting the original one?

These days is much easier to write an EPROM or EEPROM than to find one of these type I PCMCIA cards.

[zgedneil]

ZCN couldn't run directly from ROM, it uses self-modifying code. It might in principle be possible to have it load from ROM (by copying it to RAM and running it there), but it would take some doing I think. Part of the problem with doing that would be that ZCN has to cooperate with the existing ROM to handle turning off and on, which can be handled easily enough on an emulator (hence nc100em's PD ROM option) but would be a lot more involved on actual hardware I think.

I should point out though, you don't need a memory card on the NC200 and NC150 at least (due to the ramdisk option). It's just a shame that the NC100 doesn't have enough memory for that, as you say the cards are a bit of a pain.

[genesis8]

I will try to upgrade my NC200 from ZCN 1.3 to 1.4 this weekend.