Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!msdsws.enet.dec.com!secrist
From: secrist@msdsws.enet.dec.com ("Murphy's beta test site.")
Newsgroups: comp.sys.zenith.z100
Subject: New H/Z User, Lots of Questions
Message-ID: <9002190203.AA19074@decpa.pa.dec.com>
Date: 19 Feb 90 02:03:44 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 34

Greetings.  I'm new to the H/Z-100, having recently acquired an all-in-one
rig with 192K on what is probably the old motherboard and V2.5 of the
monitor ROM.  All I've really got for sure is a bootable V2.21 of MS-DOS,
an ancient user manual circa ZDOS v1.1, and the service manual.  So now
I've turned to this list for help.

What is the deal with the 320K diskettes ?  I guess MS-DOS V1.n spoke
this and Zenith was conservative about upgrading to 9-sectors ?  I seem
to be able to read and write 360K disks formatted elsewhere, but could I
be trashing these disks -- or am I okay ?

What is the best way to upgrade my O/S software and acquire doc ?
Will this get me 360K, or can I format to 9-sector some other way ?

What is the best way to expand RAM ?  Disk ?  How do you 'gen such things
into the O/S if you pop them into the S-100 ?  I guess the RAM gets
noticed, but are there verboten things ?

What about user groups ?  Is there still an H/Z Users Group ?  Outside
of SIMTEL-20, are their caches of software in the wings ?

How about attaining IBM-PC compatability ?  I guess the H/Z-100 at MS-DOS
V2.21 is still a well-behaved, BDOS call driven beast, versus the nasty
rule-breaking PC flock who call things directly.  I don't like breaking
the rules either, but there is a lot of nice software I'd like to take
advantage of.  Are "Scottie Boards" and such compatable with S-100 RAM
expansion ?  What's the best way to attack this ?  Lots of what I want
to run dies on "wild interrupts" -- is there a way I can support or trap
more of them even if the video is a bit strange ?  What do y'all recommend ?

You see where I'm coming from.  Any and all advice is appreciated.

Regards,
rcs