falter
Veteran Member
I'm hoping this is the right forum for this. I've got this RoadRunner laptop - it's a clamshell style laptop that runs a version of CP/M and is cartridge based. It has battery backed RAM carts that can be used as disk drives.
According to the documentation, it is should be capable of running most any CP/M software, and at one time there were plans to 'port' (not sure if that's the right term here) software to the machine by way of cartridge. The machine has a built in terminal - you can totally connect via serial to something and potentially download software to the RAM carts. The problem is, there is no way I can find to actually run outside CP/M software. The only software the machine recognizes as software you can operate, is software that comes on ROM carts (like BASIC, etc). I've examined the contents of these carts using the internal utility's DIRECTORY function, and BASIC for example shows up as BASIC.PGM
Since the ROM carts actually contain EPROMs, I'm wondering - what would potentially be involved conceptually in trying to, say change out the EPROM in one of the carts with an EPROM loaded with other software? Would something like, say, Zork, have to be modified to accomodate the machine's hardware, or is that covered by the OS? How would, or could, you approach taking something like ZORK over to an EPROM and make it usable by the system? Or is it way too complicated?
As far as I can see from the built-in OS, there is no way to run a program manually, ie. by just executing a .COM file.
Anyway, just wondering if this would be in the realm of possible, given this is a CP/M based system.
According to the documentation, it is should be capable of running most any CP/M software, and at one time there were plans to 'port' (not sure if that's the right term here) software to the machine by way of cartridge. The machine has a built in terminal - you can totally connect via serial to something and potentially download software to the RAM carts. The problem is, there is no way I can find to actually run outside CP/M software. The only software the machine recognizes as software you can operate, is software that comes on ROM carts (like BASIC, etc). I've examined the contents of these carts using the internal utility's DIRECTORY function, and BASIC for example shows up as BASIC.PGM
Since the ROM carts actually contain EPROMs, I'm wondering - what would potentially be involved conceptually in trying to, say change out the EPROM in one of the carts with an EPROM loaded with other software? Would something like, say, Zork, have to be modified to accomodate the machine's hardware, or is that covered by the OS? How would, or could, you approach taking something like ZORK over to an EPROM and make it usable by the system? Or is it way too complicated?
As far as I can see from the built-in OS, there is no way to run a program manually, ie. by just executing a .COM file.
Anyway, just wondering if this would be in the realm of possible, given this is a CP/M based system.