What are your favorite CP/M tools or utilities?

[TROBO]

Nice articles! Unfortunate, though, that there are no links in the article on where to download those utilities.

There are links but the site treats them oddly. Not sure why. Perhaps to block bots or copying? In any case, I've found I either have to right-click and "open in new tab" if the link is pointing to another site, or right-click and select "Save File As..." if the link is a direct download. Otherwise clicking on a link may appear to do nothing.

 

[JonB]

For me it’s ZSID

then

kermit-80

then


Ye Olde Worlde CCP

I can’t be having with all this Z system stuff. Keep it CP/M is my way, although I tend to develop Z80 on a PC with Notepad++. I know, I know “Witch! Witch! Burn the witch!” But you can all put your pitchforks down and douse the firebrands right now. Once I have a decent text editor (“vi” clone) I will develop on CPM natively. But I need the motivation to write one..l

I look forward to reviewing those comparisons!

 

[lowen]

Jon, have you tried Udo Munk's 's' yet? https://github.com/udo-munk/s

 

[JonB]

Jon, have you tried Udo Munk's 's' yet? https://github.com/udo-munk/s

Yes. I found there wasn't enough TPA left after loading for me to edit the files I wanted to edit, but I should go back and revisit it for sure. Of note is the low TPA I have available on my CP/M weapon of choice, the Superbrain. Its BIOS has all the screen handling code in it, which eats lots of memory. I may be better off switching to the S100 box (with Televideo terminal) but so far I have not got Kermit working on it yet, and that's a must have for me.

The answer for 's' is to add disk paging, which is how Wordstar can handle enormous files. Complicated, a fantastic challenge, etc - there are many reasons why WS was one of the best editors on the market (paging being one of them). But, it is a bit too cumbersome for me, even in text mode, and I don't get on with the shortcuts at all, because vi is almost hard wired into my muscle memory.

 

[lowen]

I likewise am old school vi; started using it in 1988 on a TRS-80 Model 16 running Xenix. Still use it today on Debian 11.

I'm so used to the large TPA of the CPU280 and kin that I forget TPA size can be an issue.....and I don't use CPM that often anyway.

 

[Svenska]

Once I have a decent text editor (“vi” clone) I will develop on CPM natively. But I need the motivation to write one..

Are you aware of David Given's CP/Mish project? He did a vi clone (https://github.com/davidgiven/cpmish/tree/master/cpmtools - see qe.c)
and documented the process on Youtube:

 

[JonB]

Yes that too. I didn't watch it though...