Tenth Anniversary of ZCPR (History)

The Computer Journal, Issue 54

Z-System Corner

© Jay Sage

Reproduced with permission of author and publisher.

Tenth Anniversary of ZCPR

On February 2, 1992, just about the time you are reading this column, it will be exactly ten years since the first version of ZCPR was released. I have been involved with it one way or another most of that time, and I think it is amazing how vibrant the activity in the field still is.

Our editor, Chris McEwen, had hoped that we could make this issue a special celebration of ZCPR with contributions from some of the original developers, most notably Richard Conn. I exchanged email with Richard several times about this, but he never picked up on it. Since of all those still active in the Z community I may be the one who goes back the farthest, it is perhaps fitting that I take on the task.

Announcement

Before I start on that, I do have one important announcement to make. I would like to call your attention to the new Sage Microsystems East ad in this issue. You will notice that there have been quite a number of significant price reductions. We hope that by lowering the entry price to Z-System from $70 to $49 we will encourage more people who still do not use Z-System to try it out.

The History of ZCPR

Much of the material in this column comes from the introductory chapter of my book, the "ZCPR33 User Guide." When Echelon made my revision of ZCPR3 the official product release in 1987, naturally they wanted a manual to go with it. Besides including all the necessary technical information, such as what the new command processor did and how it should be installed, I also included two other items that were of great importance to me: a statement of what I was trying to achieve with ZCPR33 and the history that led up to it. Here in TCJ I often talk about the goals of Z-System; this time I will review some of the history.

ZCPR1

"Don't you know about ZCPR!" I remember very well being greeted with that exclamation from one of the veteran club members when, as a neophyte computer user, I attended a CP/M computer club meeting. He could not believe that someone would still be using standard CP/M. I soon felt the same way and still do today!

The ZCPR he was referring to was what we would now call ZCPR1. ZCPR, which stood for "Z80 Command Processor Replacement," was the work of a group of computer hobbyists who called themselves "The CCP Group." They were Frank Wancho, Keith Petersen, Ron Fowler, Charlie Strom, Bob Mathias, and Richard Conn. Richard, as we will see, was the main force behind the effort.

Ron Fowler is well known as the author of the MEX telecommunications program, which I still use and enjoy immensely. Keith Petersen wrote a simplified version of Ward Christensen's CBBS, the original computerized bulletin board system. Keith's program was called MINICBBS; my own customized version of it runs to this day on my Z-Node. It is, to be sure, outmoded, but it gives me a sense of connection with history that I still treasure.

Keith Petersen was for a long time a sysop of one of the finest BBS systems in the country, Royal Oak. Though it branched out to MS-DOS software, it never neglected CP/M. It was, perhaps, unique in that callers to Royal Oak found themselves immediately at the operating system prompt. There was no request for a name or password. If you wanted to use MINICBBS, you had to invoke it yourself.

Frank Wancho is involved in the administration of the SIMTEL20 computer at the White Sands Missile Range. This machine houses a huge archive of CP/M programs (and many others). Keith is on contract to SIMTEL20 to help maintain the collections. I continue to see both their names. Frank, via email, gave me some of the information on the birth of ZCPR.

Sometime around 1981 Richard Conn sparked the group's enthusiasm over rewriting the CP/M console command processor, or CCP, to take advantage of the more efficient and elegant opcodes of the new Zilog Z80 microprocessor. The people in the CCP Group were not in physical proximity. I believe that they maintained contact, as we do today, via electronic mail. Frank Wancho provided the computer access that made that contact possible.

With some space opened up in the CCP, the programmers were able to add a number of convenient new features. The most important new concept was that of a search path for COM files. With CP/M version 2, Digital Research had introduced user numbers, but the way they were implemented made them virtually worthless, because there was no way from one user area to run or access files in another user area. ZCPR, with its ability to automatically search drive A/user 0, overcame this problem and opened up the possibility of putting the new user areas to effective use.

Also introduced with ZCPR was the GO command, which permitted the most recently executed transient program to be run again without having to reload it from disk. That was a real a boon in those days of slow floppy drives. Many small - but very useful and helpful - improvements were made in the resident commands. For example, in CP/M, when a REN or SAVE command specified a destination file that already existed, the command would simply abort. The user would then have to erase the old file manually and start over again. With ZCPR, the REN and SAVE commands made life easier by asking the user if the old file should be overwritten.

The original ZCPR was released to the public on a disk published by SIG/M (Special Interest Group/Microcomputers), the public-domain software distribution arm of the Amateur Computer Club of New Jersey. The disk was volume 54, dated February 2, 1982. Interestingly enough, this is volume 54 of The Computer Journal!

Several additional refinements were made to ZCPR by other programmers, leading to a train of development known as NZCPR (New ZCPR). Version 1.6 of NZCPR was released on SIG/M volume 77 at the end of October, 1982. This branch eventually reached version NZCPR21, a version never published in disk form but distributed over the remote access computer system network.

Jim Byram, of the Boston Computer Society CP/M Group, produced a privately distributed version of NZCPR using only Intel 8080 code, which showed that efficient coding, and not simply the use of the new Z80 opcodes, was a major factor in improving the command processor. Jim, by the way, may be the one who made the remark to me that I quoted earlier. I eventually became the leader of that group, which merged with several others and ultimately became the Zi/Tel Group, of which I am now the CP/M director and the bulletin board sysop. That group supports CP/M, Z-System, and MS-DOS.

ZCPR2

While ZCPR1 was a significant improvement over CP/M, it was not a revolutionary advance. Richard Conn, however, had a vision of a truly advanced operating system, and he continued the development. On February 14, 1983, almost exactly one year after ZCPR1 appeared, ZCPR2 was released in a set of ten SIG/M volumes (98-107), an unprecedented and monumental contribution of public-domain software.

ZCPR2 made a very significant conceptual advance: it used memory buffers in protected memory above the BIOS to hold new operating system modules. The command line, which had always resided in the command processor, was put in one of these buffers so that it would not be destroyed by warm boots, during which a fresh copy of the command processor is loaded from disk. In that way multiple commands on a line could be implemented.

The command search path was also placed in one of these buffers instead of hard-coding it into the command processor. In this way the search path could be changed by the user at any time. The concept of named directories was also introduced, using still another memory buffer to store the index of names.

Many of the utilities that we are familiar with in ZCPR3 first appeared with ZCPR2. These include ZEX, WHEEL, HELP, PATH, PWD, MKDIR, and MENU. A rudimentary shell concept was used in MENU. When this program placed a command into the multiple command line buffer, it would always add its own name at the end of the command sequence so that control would eventually return to MENU. This worked fine for single levels of shells. Extended command processing was also introduced with ZCPR2.

The ZCPR2 documentation, alone, ran to more than half a megabyte! It included a concepts manual, an installation manual, a users guide, and a rationale manual (I guess Rick felt he had to prove he wasn't crazy in doing all this wonderful stuff).

Shortly after the initial ZCPR2 SIG/M release, an upgrade to version 2.3 was published in volume 108. Up to this point ZCPR2 still followed in the tradition of ZCPR1 and used Zilog opcodes. The features of ZCPR2 were now so exciting, however, that owners of computers based on Intel's 8080 and 8085 microprocessors wanted to have them, too. Charlie Strom, a member of the original CCP Group and well-known later as the sysop of the Compuserve CP/M Special Interest Group, converted the command processor code and some of the key utilities to Intel-compatible code and released the result in SIG/M volume 122. At the time, believe it or not, I was using at work an Intel MDS-800 microprocessor development system, the computer for which Gary Kildall, then at Intel, invented CP/M, and I remember very well bringing up this 8080 version of ZCPR2. It was marvelous!

ZCPR3

But ZCPR2 was by no means the end of the evolution. On Bastille day, July 14, 1984, not quite a year and a half after ZCPR2, Richard Conn offered ZCPR version 3 in the form of another nine volumes of SIG/M disks (184 to 192). At this point more than 10% of all the software ever released by SIG/M had come from one contributor - Richard Conn!

One time when I was talking with Richard, I must have expressed my amazement at the incredible amount of software he had written and released to the public. I was equally impressed by Richard's response. He said that the code that others had offered to the public had taught him and helped him so much that he felt a tremendous obligation to contribute what he could to the community. He certainly did that! And that same spirit still pervades the 8-bit community.

ZCPR3 brought both significant new concepts and major refinements. Three of the innovations were flow control, error handling, and the message buffer.

Flow control made it possible to achieve a vastly higher degree of automated operation, since the command processor was no longer dependent on the user for all command decisions but could now make wide-ranging decisions on its own. The message buffer made possible communication between the command processor and programs and between successively run programs.

Error handlers made it possible for improperly entered commands to be corrected, an important facility to have in connection with multiple commands on a line. Having to retype a single command after a mistake had been bad enough; having to retype a whole, long string of commands because of a single mistake seriously discouraged one from making use of the multiple command facility.

ZCPR3, by the way, unlike it predecessors, was written so that it could be assembled to either Intel or Zilog opcodes. In the former case, the code was considerably longer and fewer features could be included, but it would work on an 8080 or 8085 computer.

ZCPR31

The chain of refinements to ZCPR3 that led to version 3.3 started in March, 1985, when I produced a private, experimental version of ZCPR3 called ZCPR31 for use on my Z-Node. It was modified so that the command processor would get the values for maximum drive and user from the environment descriptor (more on this later).

This was my first close look at operating system code, something that had always frightened me, as I am sure it has many others. There is a mystique about those words, "operating system," that makes one think that only the most advanced programmers could possibly understand the code. In fact, I discovered that the code did not look much different from that in ordinary utility programs. To my amazement, I was able to make changes that worked and improved the CCP. The most significant advances occurred in August, 1985, when three further major enhancements were introduced.

First, the code was changed to prevent the infinite loop that Z30 experienced when the specified error handler could not be found (perhaps because the path was changed or the error handler renamed). In that situation, a command error would invoke the error handler. When the error handler could not be found, that constituted another error that caused the error handler to be invoked, and so on until one pressed the reset button or turned off the power.

Second, the code was modified so that it could determine the addresses of the RCP, FCP, and NDR modules from the environment and respond to dynamic changes in these addresses.

Finally, additions were made to the code that allowed an extended command processor to return control to the command processor if it also could not resolve the command. The command processor would then invoke the error handler. Now the extended command processor really was a full-fledged extension of the CCP, and a ZCPR3 system could take advantage of both extended command processing and error handling. The same mechanism also made it possible for ordinary programs to initiate error handling.

In January, 1986, the first steps were taken to fix serious bugs in the way the minimum path and root path were computed. The fix, however, had errors of its own, and it was not until June, 1986, that Howard Goldstein finally implemented a complete and proper solution.

The next major set of advances came in March, 1986, when Al Hawley, sysop of Z-Node #2 and now a familiar TCJ author, introduced several new concepts. One was a new way to implement wheel-protected commands (commands that can be executed only by specially authorized users). In Z30 wheel protection had to be hard coded into the command processor (and RCP), and when one of the restricted commands was invoked with the wheel off, an error message resulted. Al introduced the idea of setting the high bit of the first character of a command to signal that the command was off-limits to non-wheel users.

This concept had several important advantages. First, the code was shorter. Second, the new code automatically made the same technique apply to commands in other modules (RCP and FCP), so that wheel-checking code could be eliminated from those modules. Third, when the wheel byte was off, wheel-protected commands instead of displaying an error message simply vanished as far as the command processor was concerned. In this way, transient programs or aliases with the same name as the resident command could automatically step in and provide whatever action the system implementer desired.

Al Hawley also introduced two concepts that made dealing with secure systems easier. He made it possible for the command processor to determine dynamically whether or not to recognize the DU form of directory reference in response to the setting of the DUOK flag in the environment, and he allowed the option of bypassing password checking when the wheel byte was set. These features made it possible for a sysop or system implementer to live comfortably with a secure system (though they did not make life any easier for the restricted user).

The last major advance that occurred in the development of ZCPR31 resulted from a conversation I had with Bruce Morgen in July, 1986. We were discussing the annoying way that ZEX functioned under shells, with the shell program being reloaded for each command line, only to realize that ZEX was running. It would then feed the next command line from ZEX to the multiple command line buffer. I conceived a small change in the code that made this problem vanish in a flash.

ZCPR33

At the very end of January, 1987, I got a call from Echelon. Richard Conn had decided to discontinue his involvement with ZCPR3, and Echelon asked if I would be willing to write the official ZCPR version 3.3 release based on the experimental ZCPR31. I agreed. During the months of February, March, and April of 1987 an enormous amount of additional development took place, the results of which are described in detail in the "ZCPR33 User Guide." Only some key concepts will be mentioned here.

Once again, the decision was made no longer to make any attempt to support 8080/8085 computers. The code was written using Zilog mnemonics, and extensive use was made of Z80-specific instructions, including relative jumps, block moves, block searches, direct word transfers to register pairs other than HL, 16-bit subtractions, and the alternate register set. This approach has continued to the current ZCPR34. To my knowledge, no one has even tried to make an 8080 version; there just are not many of those machines still in operation.

One of the nicest features introduced with ZCPR33 was the automatic installation of programs. Until this point, before a ZCPR-aware program could be used, it had to be "installed" for the specific system configuration. If one forgot to do this, the program would likely behave in bizarre ways, and this was a very common source of difficulty for new and experienced users alike.

In ZCPR2 installation was a very elaborate procedure in which a large block of code had to be patched using the special GENINS utility. With ZCPR3 the information about the system configuration was placed in a memory buffer (called the environment or ENV) where all programs could access it. More importantly, the system configuration could be changed without reinstalling all the programs. Now installation amounted only to patching the ENV address into the program.

As soon as I heard that Richard Conn had figured out a way to eliminate this annoying installation step, the solution became obvious to me as well. Since the command processor already loads a program from disk, and since it already knows the ENV address, why couldn't it install the address directly into the memory image of the program? That's just what it does.

One truly revolutionary concept was introduced with ZCPR33. Until that time, all CP/M transient programs were loaded to and ran at a standard address, 100H. With CP/M there was no reason to do otherwise, but with ZCPR3 there was. From the time of ZCPR1, I had become quite accustomed to using the GO command to rerun the previous program. To my puzzlement, GO sometimes produced bizarre results under ZCPR3.

Under CP/M, programs get loaded only when the user instructs the system to run them. Under ZCPR3, however, there are quite a few programs that are loaded and executed automatically by the command processor. These include extended command processors, error handlers, shells, and transient (COM) versions of otherwise resident commands, such as ERA or REN. Sometimes, using the GO command resulted in rerunning these programs instead of the last program the user specified.

One day as I was working on the ZCPR33 code, I noticed that a trivial change would allow the command processor to load a file to an address other than 100H. This, I realized, could overcome the problems with the GO command. User programs could be loaded, as usual, to 100H, but programs invoked automatically by the command processor could be loaded to a higher address, such as 8000H. User programs in low memory would not be overwritten, and the GO command would still be able to rerun them.

One more group of major innovations was introduced with ZCPR33. ZCPR30 provided a number of security features that made it particularly suitable for use on a remote access system (BBS). The so-called wheel byte could be used to control access to both resident and transient programs. Dynamically changeable limits on the range of drives and user numbers and named directories with passwords could keep callers out of certain disk areas.

This security made it possible to allow remote users to run a system directly from the command line prompt, in sharp contrast to MS-DOS remote systems, where a user who gets to the command prompt has free reign to access or destroy any part of the system.

The security system under ZCPR30, while fully effective, however, could be an unnecessary nuisance. For example, there could be situations where a user could access a directory area by name, because it had no password, but not by drive/user value, because they exceeded the allowed range. Under ZCPR33, if a directory is accessible by name, then it could also be accessed by drive/user.

ZCPR34

The current state of the art of the ZCPR command processor is version 3.4. It was first released some time around March of 1988 along with NZCOM and Z3PLUS and was described in issue 32 of TCJ. Relative to Z33 it was an evolutionary advance, a refinement; there were no radical new ideas, as there had been in Z33. Nevertheless, the changes were significant and useful. There have been several minor revisions since the original release.

One change introduced with ZCPR34 was an extended environment descriptor. We removed some information that had proved to be of little use and added new information. The most important addition was a drive vector word. The ENV always had a max-drive byte that specified the highest letter drive available on the system. However, this was not adequate for systems that had drives that were not contiguous, such a A:, B:, and E:. The new drive vector tells exactly which drives are available for use at any time.

The new ENV also contains the addresses of the CCP, BDOS, and BIOS and the sizes of the first two. This is to prepare us for some future enhancements in which we will not necessarily adhere to the standard component sizes that were specified in the original CP/M. Hal Bower and Cam Cotrill, as part of the development of a new banked version of ZSDOS (which is nearing release), have been experimenting with a CCP that is larger than the usual 2K and a banked DOS that will be significantly smaller than the standard 3.5K.

I mentioned earlier that ZCPR33 had rationalized the implementation of directory security so that any area accessible by name would also be accessible by drive/user, even if the drive or user exceeded the limit set in the environment. With ZCPR34 the symmetry was completed. Now if there is a password-protected directory that could be accessed freely using the DU: format, then its password will be ignored. Now there will never be directory areas that can be accessed in one way but not the other.

The extended command processor interface was liberalized so that commands that would formerly have been considered illegal and processed immediately as errors, such as those with wildcard characters ('?' or '*') or with an explicit file type, can be passed to the ECP. For example, the ALIAS.CMD file that defines aliases for the ARUNZ extended command processor can now have an entry for the command '?' that invokes the program HELP.

The most significant advance in ZCPR34 was support for what we now call a type-4 program. Type-3 programs, as we described earlier, are loaded and run at an address other than 100H, but the address is still fixed at the time the program is compiled. It was clear to me at the time I wrote Z33 that it would be ideal if the load/run address of a program could be determined dynamically (that is, at the time it is loaded by the CCP). However, I opted for the very simple code that sufficed for handling the type-3 program.

Joe Wright was not satisfied with that compromise and soon wrote an initial implementation of a type-4 program, which would relocate the code automatically to the top of free memory. With a lot of cooperation between us, we honed the approach to the point where it functioned very nicely and did not add much code to the command processor.

The secret to this lay in Joe's use of what is called a PRL (page relocatable) program for the executable file. The details of this are described in TCJ issue 32. The standard PRL file begins with two 128-byte header records, and I suggested placing the code required to calculate the proper load address and the code to perform the address relocation in these header records rather than in the command processor itself. Joe found a brilliant way to implement this.

Not only did this approach keep the CCP code shorter, it also made the whole type-4 program more flexible by making it independent of the command processor. My next TCJ column will introduce the first examples of alternative versions of the type-4 loader routines that are placed in the PRL header. These new headers can be installed by the user in any existing type-4 program to change the way the program relocates itself. This is another example of the beauty of the modular approach that has been one of the hallmarks of ZCPR.

My next column will also introduce the latest revision of ZCPR34, version 3.4E. Howard Goldstein prepared this version by integrating a number of ideas, most notably a small change in the type-4 loader code to make it even more flexible than it was originally.

So, after ten years, an eternity in the computer industry, ZCPR - the concept Richard Conn initiated - is still developing and still challenging the creativity of users and programmers alike. As always, these developments arise from the cooperation of a large community of people willing and eager to share ideas.

[This article was originally published in issue 54 of The Computer Journal, P.O. Box 12, South Plainfield, NJ 07080-0012 and is reproduced with the permission of the author and the publisher. Further reproduction for non-commercial purposes is authorized. This copyright notice must be retained. (c) Copyright 1991, 1992 Socrates Press and respective authors]