10 FOR I = 0 TO 255

20 PRINT I;CHR$(I)

30 NEXT I

Will give you a list of all the characters available in MBASIC

32 - 126 and repeating again 160 - 254

There is room here using a custom font to have Programmable Character Graphics.

Giving you an emulated development environment inside on Laptop/Computer where target machine only needs to see the final code. e.g. Microbee, Sinclair Spectrum, Commodore 128, etc.
PETSCII could also be achieved using 2 characters at a time creating a 16x16 character..

Using MacOS I can specify the font in terminal and then Launch RunCPM, I can get basic to display WebDings.

That is cool.  It would be fun see those block characters we had in the old 8 bits machines.

Bdos Err on A: Select
I'm getting this error, where have I gone wrong?

This might be related to the creation (format) of the folders which will represent the drives. Make sure to check the readme on the GitHub page, as is has a lot of details on how to implement.
Make sure also to join our Discord server (link on the readme file), as it is a good place to share and obtain additional help.

I have the same problem. I'm not sure if the SdFat lib has changed but I get SdFatExdoes not name type. I am at a loss what to try. I am using an arduino Due.

Hi David.
Please check the changes just added to the comments on RunCPM.ino, top of the code.
It should work for you if you edit those lines in-place. Give it a try and let me know.
Also, feel free to join the thread we have going in the GitHub page, we usually pick up things quickly from there.
Cheers! Marcelo.

thank you so much. Your help fixed my issue. Had a few more on the way but managed to sort them.  I'm am now up and running so I now can write my z80 code for my Z80 computer I designed and built some 36 years ago. 

Working on porting the code from the DUE to an ESP32 board. I think I have a library issue; getting an error "SdFatSoftSpiEX does not name a type". Done a clean install of the Arduino IDE and then Tools/Manage Libraries, search SdFat and got the latest version of Bill Greinman's SD driver. Went back to the old CPMduino code from a few years back and this still compiles/works fine on the DUE. Then took the new RunCPM code and tried compiling for the DUE and it gives an error similar to above "SdFatEx does not name a type". Changed the SD declaration from "SdFatEx SD;" to "SdFat SD;" and this then compiles, but gives an error reading the SD card. Am looking forward to running the ESP32 because this board has enough ram to also do a VT100 emulation (I also see someone recently has got a VGA driver working on the ESP32). All very exciting! Any help would be most appreciated.

Look at https://github.com/MockbaTheBorg/RunCPM/blob/master/RunCPM/RunCPM.ino#L6-L9 for two small changes in the SD card library's header. Did you apply this?
Indepently from this: The ESP32 port currently has or has not a problem (1. Hitchhiker 25,59: I demand that I may or may not be Vroomfondel!) with the SD card access for some(!) users. Probably more users may help to surround the bug faster. Please drop your experiences with this into https://github.com/MockbaTheBorg/RunCPM/issues/76 even if all just behaves well.

VGA inside: Bitluni's ESP32 VGA stuff does not do 80 characters per line (due to less than 480 pixels per scanline, which is too less for a 6 pixels wide font) or did he release a newer version I'm not aware of? I remember CP/M on a moded TRS-80-Model-1 with 16 lines à 64 chars and that was ugly because lots of software was hardcoded for 80 chars per line. I really don't want to see this again. Well... the lib does 480 in the y direction... turning the screen might help.

LCD/TFT instead? The ESP32 may support some 480x320 displays now. I think that would be more attractive because then all what's missing is a nice small keyboard and we'd have a CP/M-PDA. Dreams would come true! A nice useable keyboard (without the need for my not yet finished finger sharpener) probably is a bigger hurdle than the display. Maybe just a touchscreen frame over a printout of the keyboard layout? I saw a calculator build somewhere using a screen less touch thingy as keyboard... mooooooment... https://hackadaycom.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/calc2.png ;-)

...and ol' Santa still hasn't delivered the 100 hrs day I've put on my wish list more than a decade ago... :-(

Hi Yeti, yes tried those changes in the library header. Not sure if it matters where those changes are? (I just put them next to the other #define). I'm also trying to find another example using this SD code, searching for "SdFatSoftSpiEX" for example. 

Re VGA, yes good points. And very much agree that 80 column is the minimum.

I have been looking at TFTs, the ones with 480 are coming down in price. One issue is the update speed; smaller displays work fine with I2C and SPI but above about 480x320 it gets a bit slow and works better with parallel. I don't think all the ESP32 boards bring out all the pins. 

Re keyboard, I've got one for my PC that is half the size of a standard keyboard but still easy to touch type on. 

The ESP32 has ?512k ram, so it would be cool to have inbuilt VT100, plus MP/M. Also, is it dual core? If so, could you run two CP/M emulations in parallel? Plus it would be nifty to get the wifi working. 

Not enough time, like you say!

That SD card problem is mysterious! If you switch back some commits until before the change to the new SD library, you'll get a stable but really slooooow SD card. That may help until the current problems are identified.

WiFi? https://github.com/MockbaTheBorg/RunCPM/issues/74 already gives telnet access. The author left that issue/tread with the comment: "I will have another version in a few weeks to support slightly different networking mode."

So I'm staying ommm...mmmptimistic about this...

In Whitecat's Lua (https://github.com/whitecatboard/Lua-RTOS-ESP32/wiki) I saw a single connection dropbear,  so SSHing into an ESP32 definitely has been done before.

There definitely is room for lots of add ons... :-)

One dream probably never will come true: CP/M plus directories. But maybe we can hold more directories with archived disk contents and "mount" them onto the driveletter directories. The TRS-80 on PIC32 emulator (https://hackaday.io/project/9077) has done something similar and probably some other Z80+CP/M emulators too...

@moxhamj ... I just stumbled over https://github.com/fdivitto/FabGL

It is a too tight for RunCPM plus this terminal to fit in one ESP32-Wroom but the newer Wrover modules have additional external RAM.

Sweet dreams! ;-)

Yes Yeti, finally got those 100 hours and had a moment to get it working. Am running on an ESPDUINO-32 board and it is very nice.  This is an arduino form factor board and the reset works automatically with downloads (I have some other esp32 boards that need the reset button pushed prior to downloading). Needed to change the SD card pin numbers in the code. Also I see that  CP/M's User areas is now mandatory, so moved the files from folder A to folder A, User 0, and Wordstar is up and running! Now to start playing around with some fun stuff. Real keyboard. TFT display. Also the ESP32 has 3 uarts, so why not add the PUN and LST and RDR on those? I've also got some NRF radio modules and have written some packet code, and just for fun, can log into CP/M wirelessly via a transparent 9600 baud link (with inbuilt error correction, packet resend behind the scenes). So can have CP/M running on a wireless display and keyboard.  Thanks++ for the advice above - very much appreciated!

@moxhamj:       \o/ ____( Fantastic!!! )

Is SD card access stable in your setup?
My ESP32s still are collecting dust because of: https://github.com/MockbaTheBorg/RunCPM/issues/76

Hi Yeti, I did have SD access problems, and good news, after a morning of experiments, I solved the problem! I posted a detailed reply in the github link you provided. Cheers, James

@moxhamj : \o/

More at github...

cc reply on github: I spent a morning on this one and I found a solution! I have 3 ESP32 modules running RunCP/M out of the box, multiple SD cards, all reformatted to Fat32 and then files/directory structure all cloned. It seems to be a write issue, and for me it comes up when Wordstar boots and it gives a "bdos error on [drive]" This sent me off on the wrong trail thinking it was CP/M but it is not. It appears it is the brand of SD card. Sandisk works. Kingston works. No Name "MicroSD" ones do not. The cards are all 1gb to 4gb. Hope this helps someone :)

More experiments  August 2nd regarding the SD card and ESP32. Simple test for writes - start MBASIC, write a one line program and then save it. Works with sandisk and kingston, not with no-name sd cards. Tried very short leads, no change. Ok, on the arduino IDE once ESP 32 is installed, File/Examples/ESP32 examples,/SD(esp32)/SD_Test., this appears to be the official SD code for the ESP32, and indeed it works fine for every SD card I can find. So... what would it take to port this code into the RunCPM? Lots of #ifdefs I suspect. There are some syntax changes, for instance, no need to declare which pins are which as these are fixed. And there are two SD.h files that are different, so need to tell the compiler which one is being used (more ifdefs). And then there are slight differences in the way functions are called, eg  in runCPM to append a file

f = SD.open((char *)filename, O_WRITE | O_APPEND);

and in the ESP 32 example it is 

File file = fs.open(path, FILE_APPEND);

Quick perusal through the code, I dunno, 20 to 50 lines need changing. 

I looked at the cards again and found that Sandisk-2GB cards were among the failing ones here too. But they came on the backs of silk road racing camels. Maybe they were relabelled nonames.

Anybody try to get Turbo Pascal 3..0 up and running?  I can run it, I may be able to build code in it, but despite having ENABLE_VIRTUAL_TERMINAL_PROCESSING specified on the SetConsoleMode, I get stuff like this:

e←[1mX←[0mecute  ←[1mD←[0mir      ←[1mQ←[0muit  compiler

instead of the escape sequences being interpreted properly.  

TINST is set up for an ANSI / VT100 terminal.

Hi Greg, I do have Turbo Pascal running.

Which Operating System are you running RunCPM on? If it is Windows 7 you may need to install an ANSI driver to your console.

When running on Windows 10 or Linux it should be fine.

When running on boards like the Arduino DUE or the Teensy you can use a VT100 compatible terminal emulator, like Putty, and it should be fine too.

Let me know the details and I should be able to help.

Also, feel free to open an Issue on the GitHub repository as well.

Cheers,

Marcelo.

Thanks for the tip, trying to figure out how to make that happen - I can see where some people add ansi.sys to a config.nt file, but I'm not sure that would work on my system.  I can't find any Microsoft reference that talks about it.

Have you tried running on a STM32xxxxx board?

Hi Peabody,

I actually did. I do have a STM32F407 board from the discovery series here, which I bought with this sole purpose.

This was very early during the development of RunCPM however, and I couldn't make it work at that time, so, as the Arduino and Teensy ports were working very fine, I ended up not dedicating time to it anymore, and it is sitting on a shelf since.

If you have one of these, feel free to give it a shot, RunCPM code has matured over the last few years and became more modular and portable, so it should be easier to implement.

You need to use a board which has plenty of RAM, as RunCPM itself will allocate minimum of 64K.

I have, unfortunately, not found the free time or energy lately to install one more development environment to migrate to it. I keep looking at it when I go to my boards and thinking "maybe one day". :)

Cheers,

Marcelo.

Update: Looks like the STM32F407 can now be used on Arduino, based on this project: https://www.stm32duino.com/
Source code here: https://github.com/rogerclarkmelbourne/Arduino_STM32
SD Library here: https://github.com/stm32duino/STM32SD
There's a good chance this will work.

I have tried compiling it there but got some errors, also, the code needs defines to use different settings when building for different boards. Not sure when I would be able to port it, but if you want to give it a try check the above.

I am not using the guy's STM32duino boot loader, as I feel it is not needed, you can program the boards from Arduino using the on-board st-link.

I was able to load a led-blink program onto it, which is already some progress.

On a second thought: maybe this works better: https://github.com/stm32duino/Arduino_Core_STM32
This one supports the Board Manager, so it becomes easier to install.

I have finally ported RunCPM to the STM32F4-DISCOVERY, check it out on the Github page: https://github.com/MockbaTheBorg/RunCPM/issues/68

Edit: it is ported, but it is not working fine.

Hi Peabody. STM32 is now officially supported and operational. Enjoy!   :)