Exploring Atari 8-bit CP/M with Fujinet and Indus GT

Digging a little deeper into two methods of booting CP/M 2.2 on the Atari 8-bit computers: Fujinet and Indus GT. Trying out a number of terminal emulators including Ice-T, BobTerm and VT850 with CP/M, as well as 80 column devices such as the DT80 cartridge and Atari's own XEP80. And as a fitting finale, running WordStar and MTPlus Pascal and a few old favourite CP/M transients. WARNING: dull stuff unless you like CP/M!

[@tschak909]

Hi. I am the firmware engineer. I implemented the RunCPM integration. DT80 emulates a Lear Siegler ADM-3A terminal. WordStar and other programs can be configured appropriately.

[@backroomboy4420]

Thom! Thank you for the info, thank you for the fabulous FujiNet and thank you for integrating a really wonderful and useable implementation of RunCPM which is so much fun to explore

[@stickyfox]

Indus GT.. like.. the coolest computer peripheral ever. It's the kind of floppy you'd expect to see on the dash of a Lamborghini.

[@backroomboy4420]

Lol! The company's advertising slogan was: Turn Your Atari Into A Ferrari! :)

[@fourthhorseman4531]

As a kid I wanted one of those drives so bad! "What's wrong with your tape drive?" --My parents.

[@IsaacGabriel-kh5ds]

Would have loved this back in the day as I was using Xerox CP/M machines in high school.

[@backroomboy4420]

You and me both! MS COBOL and MT Pascal would've really made my day easier writing programs for my undergraduate course. Thanks for watching :)

[@adameberbach]

Nice video, thanks! I'm going to try it out with my fujinet.

[@backroomboy4420]

You're welcome! Thank you for watching :)

[@xoxide1017]

I had one Indus GT and the included software was pretty good. loved the drive ..

[@backroomboy4420]

Absolutely! Me too. The Indus is a great drive, I love mine!

[@mattsworld7943]

The "Omniview" OS ROM is a good alternative to the DT80 if you have the Ultimate1Mb board installed. That not only gives you 80 columns in DOS, but also works with VT850 and using it's built in CP/M mode will talk directly to an ATR8000 or FujiNet by holding down START SELECT and OPTION together while typing a key. Insterestingly it too is Lear Siegler ADM-3A terminal compatible, I just tried it.

[@backroomboy4420]

That is interesting, thank you. Might be worth a little follow-up video burning and installing a copy of Omniview and giving it an outing with CP/M. Thanks again :)

[@gamedoutgamer]

This is very helpful thank you BRB! Learned a few things.

[@backroomboy4420]

You're welcome! Thank you for watching

[@michaelstoliker971]

Thank you for this.

[@backroomboy4420]

You're welcome! Thank you for watching :)

[@lsdowdle]

I wonder if there is any way to get FujiNet on the MiSTer FPGA Atari 8-bit core working?

[@backroomboy4420]

Well the longer I live the more often I'm amazed by just what can be done, so yes, possibly. So long as you could route the required (emulated) SIO signals to the FujiNet device, I really don't see why not :)

[@MistaMaddog247]

If you're looking for a VT100 emulator that works on the XEP80, there's one that Cathryn Mataga worked on. There's still the 4800 baud limitation due to the XEP80 driver itself though. kzbin.info/www/bejne/bp3Efqx-f8d9sNk

[@backroomboy4420]

Definitely one to check out, thank you

[@cathrynm]

It will take effort, maybe impossible to get faster than 4800. The problem is that XEP80 needs to stop interrupts for its poorly designed way of talking to the device through the joystick port.

[@meneerjansen00]

Depending on you WordStar version you need to change the terminal it expects with the program WSCHANGE or WINSTALL that come with WordStar. Or was that not the question you asked at 7:42?

[@backroomboy4420]

You're right, and that works fine so long as you know the terminal type (or at least have screen codes to create a custom type). Ice-T works beautifully with Wordstar set to VT100 and the Indus 80 column terminal is selected within WS as a Lear-Siegler ADM-3A but I've no idea what DT80 is emulating...

[@meneerjansen00]

@@backroomboy4420 Aha. I get it. I have that problem too in some emulators/terminal software. Very frustrating. I hope you find the terminal it emulates some day. Have you tried ANSI compatible yet? You probably have.... P.S. Some pretty nice CP/M classic books you have there! Can't be bought anymore unless you pay scalper prices. I found 'm in PDF form. Hate reading from PDF though.

[@backroomboy4420]

​@@meneerjansen00 Me too! Even when I was selling off a lot of my classic computing stuff back in the '90s I never parted with a book and now, as you say, prices are through the roof

[@w1katari]

interesting

[@backroomboy4420]

Thank you :)