Starting To Use Cp/M - Epson PX-8 User Manual

3.3 Starting To Use CP 1M
Although the MENU is an aid to using CP
1M,
it is not a replacement. To use
the MENU effectively, a working knowledge of
CP/M
is required. An under-
standing of how to use CP
1M
is also required to make effective use of the CP
1M
utility programs.
3.3.1 Disk drive names
Switch off the MENU from the System Display (section 2.2.3) and the screen
will clear to show the system prompt "A>". All drives are given an identifica-
tion letter. It is possible to change the relationship between the actual physical
drives and the identifying letter on some of the drives. This can be done with
the CONFIG program described in section 3.8. When you initialize your PX-8
the drives are specified as follows:
Identifying letter
A:
B:
C:
D:
E:
F:
G:
H:
Physical Drive
RAM disk
ROM 1
ROM 2
Floppy Disk Drive 1
Floppy Disk Drive 2
Floppy Disk Drive 3
Floppy Disk Drive 4
MICROCASSETTE DRIVE
The default drive is set to drive A: which is why the system prompt said "A>".
Notice that apart from the system prompt the drive name is followed by a col-
on(:). Since file names and commands consist ofletters,
CP/M
has to have some
means of recognising when you are talking about a disk drive identifier. The
colon is always used in CP
1M
to denote a drive. The system prompt always
includes the default or currently "logged in" drive as a reminder to you which
drive is currently logged in. Unless you specify another drive, all access to drives
(saving and loading or simply inspecting the contents of the drive) will be made
to that drive. To use the currently logged in drive, you need not type in its iden-
tifier.
This can be seen with the following sequence of operations:
Type the command DIR next to the system prompt and press the
I
RETURN
I
key.
This means "show me all the files stored on the currently logged in drive".
If
there are no files on the disk the screen will show:
3-6
A)DIR
NO FILE
A)
You can specify another drive by adding the drive name after the DIR com-
mand as follows when the screen will show:
A)DIR
c:
C: PIP COM : STAT
C: FILINK COM: TERM
A)
COM SUBMIT COM: XSUB
COM CONFIG COM
COM
Rather than type the command DIR, you can press the Programmable Func-
tion Key
I
PF1
I .
This will print the command "dir " , including the required
space.
To change the logged in drive, type the name of the new drive and press the
I
RETURN
I
key. For example to change the logged in drive to drive C: type the
two characters "C:" and press
I
RETURN
I .
The prompt then changes to "C>".
Now simply using the DIR command will give a directory of drive C:, and then
return to show drive C: is the currently logged in drive. If you do this the screen
will show:
A)C:
C)DIR
C: PIP COM : STAT
C: FILINK COM: TERM
C)
COM : SUBMIT COM: XSUB
COM : ·CONF I G COM
3-7
COM