Hi all,

For anyone interested, I'm currently restoring the originals of the
DRI CP/M 3 reference manuals - User's Guide, Programmer's Guide,
System Guide, and SID reference. For anyone who's not interested,
thanks for reading this far!

I downloaded the postscript originals because all the other copies I
could find had horrible OCR issues, with extremely poor quality text.
Unfortunately, this is a result of the originals being in such a sad
state.

So I've taken the liberty of cleaning them up and bringing them into
the 21st century. Without too many or too serious changes, of course,
I want to stay fairly true to the original intents. And obviously,
consistency is critical.

I'll post an update when I've finished (sometime during the coming
week) with a download reference, etc. I'm about 90% through the User's
guide, so another 3-5 days is about right, all else being equal.

They will be available in PDF, Word, and Open Office format. I'll also
submit them to the Memorial Archive as completed.

I hope this makes someone happy, apart from me.

Cheers,
Pete

PC Pete wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> For anyone interested, I'm currently restoring the originals of the
> DRI CP/M 3 reference manuals - User's Guide, Programmer's Guide,
> System Guide, and SID reference. For anyone who's not interested,
> thanks for reading this far!
>
> I downloaded the postscript originals because all the other copies I
> could find had horrible OCR issues, with extremely poor quality text.
> Unfortunately, this is a result of the originals being in such a sad
> state.
>
> So I've taken the liberty of cleaning them up and bringing them into
> the 21st century. Without too many or too serious changes, of course,
> I want to stay fairly true to the original intents. And obviously,
> consistency is critical.
>
> I'll post an update when I've finished (sometime during the coming
> week) with a download reference, etc. I'm about 90% through the User's
> guide, so another 3-5 days is about right, all else being equal.
>
> They will be available in PDF, Word, and Open Office format. I'll also
> submit them to the Memorial Archive as completed.
>
> I hope this makes someone happy, apart from me.
>
> Cheers,
> Pete

Hello Pete,

Here are some links to existing digitized CP/M 3.0 manuals which I hope 
may save you some work.

I found the PDF version of the manuals at http://www.cpm.z80.de/manuals.
The print in these manuals appears quite clean and legible.

I opened these in Adobe Acrobat 5 and was able to save them in
either RTF or TXT format which appeared to be complete. I could also 
extract the graphics into PNG files.

Some of the manuals are also available in HTML at the following:

    http://rvbelzen.tripod.com/cpm3-prg/

    http://www.worldofspectrum.org/Plus3CPMManual/index.html

Jeffrey W. Shook

On Sat, 26 Feb 2011 18:49:52 -0500, "Jeffrey W. Shook"
<31415926@optonline.net> wrote:
>I found the PDF version of the manuals at http://www.cpm.z80.de/manuals.
>The print in these manuals appears quite clean and legible.
>
>I opened these in Adobe Acrobat 5 and was able to save them in
>either RTF or TXT format which appeared to be complete. I could also 
>extract the graphics into PNG files.
G'day Jeffrey,

Those are the ones I'm cleaning up!

The CP/M 2.2 manuals are in much better shape, so hopefully we haven't
got our lines crossed there! I'm working with the CP/M 3 manuals, as
that's what I'll be porting to my new system when it's up.

To be specific, there are approximately 870+ spelling errors and 550+
OCR errors (1s instead of Ls and vice-versa, that kind of thing) in
the USRGUIDE.PS/USRGUIDE.PDF. Many are cosmetic (you'd only notice if
they were pointed out in most cases), but because I'm viewing these on
the very high-res Kindle DX, they stick out like dog's proverbials...
:)

My touchstone is : would the examples run? and most would definitely
not. It's not a big deal, it's only cosmetic after all, but it's
something I can do (and I'm pretty good at it).

The other guides (PRGGUIDE, SYSTEM, COMMAND) aren't quite as bad, and
they're much easier to fix up as they're less jargon-filled.

I will take up your offer and check out the other sites to see what
they've got in terms of CP/M 3. I ended up with 7 copies of the guides
from 9 different sites, and they all had the same errors in them,
whether they were PDF, DOC, ODT, or PS (which was the original
format). So I think there's a "master set" floating around with all
the problems in them, and everyone else has inherited the same
problems.

Thanks so much for helping out, I really appreciate your comments.
Cheers,
Pete

Hi All,

The first manual is available for download.

You can find it at http://www.audiography.com.au/Software. The link is
at the bottom of the page, it should be self-explanatory to use. Right
click and select "Save as..." to download the PDF.

The PDF contains a full TOC, and I've reformatted the layout so it
fits much more comfortably in 152 pages (instead of the original
257!), and includes some colours to assist in picking the code from
the text. The wording (apart from grammar and spelling fixes) is
identical, as is the structure and order. It's just modernised a bit.

If there is a need, I'll re-do the manuals in the original (plain b&w,
super-wide line spacing, wide margins, etc) format, to stay true to
the original. It's just so much easier reading it in the new layout.
Have a look to see what I mean, if you're interested.

FWIW, my other "EntropyWare" tools are on the same site as well - the
Hex file parser, a music list creation tool, and of course the LBR
unpacker.

I've notified Gaby (webmistress at cpm.z80.de) about the new manuals,
once I've heard from her I'll post an update here. If anyone thinks
they're going to be suitable elsewhere, please drop me a line and i'll
get in touch with the various sites.

Cheers!
PCPete

Hallo Pete,
I dowloaded the CP/M 3 PDF.
Thank you for al the work!
I have two points:Table 5-3 pages 31 and 32 and table 5-4 page 39 are 
running of the edge of the page.
Question: is it possible to include page numbers on the pages?

The link is not complete (I think) How about 
http://www.audiography.com.au/Software/Downloads.htm
And can you do something about the text colors. It is (almost) impossible to 
read those light green and violet txt.
Just plain black will make me, and others I think, very happy.
Henk Siewert

"PC Pete" <PCPete@audiography.com.au> schreef in bericht 
news:st1km65cj095njlqibtkd463oe1a98u1fv@4ax.com...
> Hi All,
>
> The first manual is available for download.
>
> You can find it at http://www.audiography.com.au/Software. The link is
> at the bottom of the page, it should be self-explanatory to use. Right
> click and select "Save as..." to download the PDF.
>
> The PDF contains a full TOC, and I've reformatted the layout so it
> fits much more comfortably in 152 pages (instead of the original
> 257!), and includes some colours to assist in picking the code from
> the text. The wording (apart from grammar and spelling fixes) is
> identical, as is the structure and order. It's just modernised a bit.
>
> If there is a need, I'll re-do the manuals in the original (plain b&w,
> super-wide line spacing, wide margins, etc) format, to stay true to
> the original. It's just so much easier reading it in the new layout.
> Have a look to see what I mean, if you're interested.
>
> FWIW, my other "EntropyWare" tools are on the same site as well - the
> Hex file parser, a music list creation tool, and of course the LBR
> unpacker.
>
> I've notified Gaby (webmistress at cpm.z80.de) about the new manuals,
> once I've heard from her I'll post an update here. If anyone thinks
> they're going to be suitable elsewhere, please drop me a line and i'll
> get in touch with the various sites.
>
> Cheers!
> PCPete 

On -28163-01--10 20:59, PC Pete wrote:
 > Hi All,
 >
 > The first manual is available for download.
 >
 > You can find it at http://www.audiography.com.au/Software. The link is
 > at the bottom of the page, it should be self-explanatory to use. Right
 > click and select "Save as..." to download the PDF.
 >
 > The PDF contains a full TOC, and I've reformatted the layout so it
 > fits much more comfortably in 152 pages (instead of the original
 > 257!), and includes some colours to assist in picking the code from
 > the text. The wording (apart from grammar and spelling fixes) is
 > identical, as is the structure and order. It's just modernised a bit.

Thank You...

I just glance thru it and found:

Table 3-2. Banked CP/M 3 Line-editing Control Characters
Table 5-3. Syntax Notation
Table 5-4. DEVICE Options

start outside page width,... end outside page width...!

Appendix E : User's Glossary
"block
       Area of disk."
should be:...?
"<b>block:</b>      Area of disk."

a lot easy to read...?

color: a00000...? (as in the original paper)
(blue are also "nice" of cause)

a TOC...?

header: Title - Heading...?
footer:	page #...?

else "nice" Thank You...
<ole>

On Sun, 27 Feb 2011 11:02:26 +0100, "Henk Siewert" <swt@tiscali.nl>
wrote:
>I have two points:Table 5-3 pages 31 and 32 and table 5-4 page 39 are 
>running of the edge of the page.
I thought I'd fixed that problem. I'll have another look at it first
thing in the morning...
>Question: is it possible to include page numbers on the pages?
I don't know why I didn't include page numbers anyway! I must be
getting old...
>The link is not complete (I think) How about 
>http://www.audiography.com.au/Software/Downloads.htm
Mea culpa, Henk. I've been cutting and pasting links all day. You're
right of course, the downloads page should be referenced...Aha...The
actual direct link to the doc is :
http://audiography.com.au/Software/CPM3%20User's%20Guide%20(FINAL).pdf

>And can you do something about the text colors. It is (almost) impossible to 
>read those light green and violet txt.
>Just plain black will make me, and others I think, very happy.
I tried to select colours that colourblind people could still see, but
they might be quite a bit "off" depending on your (and my!) monitors.
I was going to print the pages anyway.
Leave it with me, I'll make a "plain vanilla" copy and update here.
Thanks for the great feedback!
-Pete

On Sun, 27 Feb 2011 11:40:07 +0100, Ole Christensen
<ole2news@newsguy.com> wrote:

>Thank You...
You're welcome!

>I just glance thru it and found:
>
>Table 3-2. Banked CP/M 3 Line-editing Control Characters
>Table 5-3. Syntax Notation
>Table 5-4. DEVICE Options
>
>start outside page width,... end outside page width...!
I use an extremely wide monitor to view the final material. You're not
the only one to notice. I'll fix that up first thing in the morning!
>Appendix E : User's Glossary
>"block
>       Area of disk."
>should be:...?
>"<b>block:</b>      Area of disk."
Yeah, that's a function of how my editor is set up to render
"definition tags". I'll look into it.
>a lot easy to read...?
>
>color: a00000...? (as in the original paper)
>(blue are also "nice" of cause)
I've promised Henk I'll also do a plain version. I tried to choose the
two colours to be outside the colour sensitivity band, but I think
that backfired on me!
>a TOC...?
I was using the PDF's TOC sidebar as a test. Obviously this failed.
I can do it 2 ways - just the main headings, or including all the
functions (5.2.37, etc). The catch is the functions take a lot of
space (over 70). Maybe I'll put the functions at the end, where the
index used to be. Your thoughts?
>header: Title - Heading...?
>footer:	page #...?
The smallest header/footer I can do is 2.5 cm, which is a lot of "real
estate" the way my PDF compiler works. Let me see if I can add
something small and elegant.
>else "nice" Thank You...
><ole>
I'm glad it didn't send you insane or blind or screaming. THanks for
the nice feedback, I appreciate it.
I'll provide an update tomorrow (it's very 12 AM-ish here...)
>

PC Pete  wrote:

>For anyone interested, I'm currently restoring the originals
> of the DRI CP/M 3 reference manuals ...

> You can find [the restorations] at (audiography.com.au)
>
> The PDF contains a full TOC, and I've reformatted the layout so it
> fits much more comfortably in 152 pages (instead of the original
> 257!), and includes some colours to assist in picking the code from
> the text. The wording (apart from grammar and spelling fixes) is
> identical, as is the structure and order. It's just modernised a bit.

Please keep to the original text. There's a history of "others" who
have reconstructed their own version of some "lost" Digital Research
manuals, from whole pieces of later manuals, plus their major edits.
But "they" did not bother to note all their work, sources and changes.
Now those pseduo-manuals may be confused with later, actual copies of
those "lost" manuals.

Also note: the manuals are probably American English, so you are
"modernizing" them, not "modernising"! This is not awfully important
but better to consider this point now than later.

> I've notified Gaby (webmistress at cpm.z80.de) about the new manuals,
> once I've heard from her I'll post an update here. If anyone thinks
> they're going to be suitable elsewhere, please drop me a line and i'll
> get in touch with the various sites.

Strictly speaking, "Pete", only Gaby has a license from DRDOS.COM
Inc., the owners of that Digital Research intellectual property, to
host CP/M software and manuals. The email of permission is on Gaby's
site. But in fact, other sites have copies in their archives.

I hope you work with Gaby to provide her with your "restored"
versions, as many people refer to the "unofficial CP/M archive" Gaby
operates as the primary source for DRI documents and early software.
Speaking for myself, thanks for your efforts, give her my regards as
well.

Since you are obviously editing the text of these PDF'ed documents,
I'll ask you. WOuld an additional, smaller text-only version of these
manuals be "worth" the effort? Some PDF's are really fat because they
are page images, not text with formatting. It doesn't matter for
modern systems, but to put the text for convenience on a CP/M system
with a small hard drive, bytes matter. I could imagine someone might
make a CP/M 3.0 "help" system using text-only files, another example.

Herb Johnson
retrotechnology.com

There is a new, improved version available on the Downloads page.
You can download it directly from :
"http://www.audiography.com.au/Software/CPM3 User's Guide.pdf", or if
the spaces in that link don't work, go to :
http://www.audiography.com.au/Software/Downloads.htm and click the PDF
icon in the table at the bottom of the page.

As per Ole's and Henk's requests, I've added the following :
- Changed the font colours to a much darker (and clearer) setting;
- page headers with document details and page #s;
- Fixed ALL tables and added new headers, top-of-page headers, etc;
- A list of tables;
- A list of references to usage examples;
- Fixed around 90 more OCR problems (extra spaces, missing periods)
- Reformatted VDU output examples so they fit across the page;
- Reformatted the user glossary;
.... and a few other minor odds and ends.

I've also changed some of the default fonts back to more standard font
faces, with the exception of the TOCs. If there are problems, let me
know!

I got caught out by having my hard tabs somehow changed to spaces.
Turns out that Frontpage converts tabs to spaces whether you want it
to or not, and even if you make no changes to the source, if you
"save" the document (instead of cancelling it), the spaces are saved!

I learn something new every day!

I hope this document is much more useful to more people now.

As before, please let me know if you find any problems or see any more
OCR issues. I _think_ I've now caught most of them (for a combined
total of 1,277 errors fixed, including spelling and grammar).

HTH!
PCPete

PC Pete wrote:
> On Sat, 26 Feb 2011 18:49:52 -0500, "Jeffrey W. Shook"
> <31415926@optonline.net>  wrote:
>> I found the PDF version of the manuals at http://www.cpm.z80.de/manuals.
>> The print in these manuals appears quite clean and legible.
>>
>> I opened these in Adobe Acrobat 5 and was able to save them in
>> either RTF or TXT format which appeared to be complete. I could also
>> extract the graphics into PNG files.
> G'day Jeffrey,
>
> Those are the ones I'm cleaning up!
>
> The CP/M 2.2 manuals are in much better shape, so hopefully we haven't
> got our lines crossed there! I'm working with the CP/M 3 manuals, as
> that's what I'll be porting to my new system when it's up.
>
> To be specific, there are approximately 870+ spelling errors and 550+
> OCR errors (1s instead of Ls and vice-versa, that kind of thing) in
> the USRGUIDE.PS/USRGUIDE.PDF. Many are cosmetic (you'd only notice if
> they were pointed out in most cases), but because I'm viewing these on
> the very high-res Kindle DX, they stick out like dog's proverbials...
> :)
>
> My touchstone is : would the examples run? and most would definitely
> not. It's not a big deal, it's only cosmetic after all, but it's
> something I can do (and I'm pretty good at it).
>
> The other guides (PRGGUIDE, SYSTEM, COMMAND) aren't quite as bad, and
> they're much easier to fix up as they're less jargon-filled.
>
> I will take up your offer and check out the other sites to see what
> they've got in terms of CP/M 3. I ended up with 7 copies of the guides
> from 9 different sites, and they all had the same errors in them,
> whether they were PDF, DOC, ODT, or PS (which was the original
> format). So I think there's a "master set" floating around with all
> the problems in them, and everyone else has inherited the same
> problems.
>
> Thanks so much for helping out, I really appreciate your comments.
> Cheers,
> Pete

Hi Pete,

I see what you mean about the PDF files.  They contain graphics of the 
pages which look quite nice but the underlying OCR information can be 
muddled.  I dug out the files in the archive at

http://www.cpm.z80.de/manuals/archive/cpm3/cpm3-ms.zip

which says it has the original source in AMIPRO v3.0 format.  In the 
Powerdesk 8 viewer these look quite nice. I printed the User Guide to 
the CutePDF writer and then tried extracting the text from the PDF file 
it created.  There didn't seem to be any OCR errors.  I don't have 
AMIpro on my computer at present but if I can find my Lotus software 
disk I will see what the manuals look like in the original format. Did 
you also look into this archive?

Jeff

On 02/27/2011 07:55 PM, PC Pete wrote:
> There is a new, improved version available on the Downloads page.
> You can download it directly from :
> "http://www.audiography.com.au/Software/CPM3 User's Guide.pdf", or if
> the spaces in that link don't work, go to :
> http://www.audiography.com.au/Software/Downloads.htm and click the PDF
> icon in the table at the bottom of the page.
>
> As per Ole's and Henk's requests, I've added the following :
> - Changed the font colours to a much darker (and clearer) setting;
> - page headers with document details and page #s;
> - Fixed ALL tables and added new headers, top-of-page headers, etc;
> - A list of tables;
> - A list of references to usage examples;
> - Fixed around 90 more OCR problems (extra spaces, missing periods)
> - Reformatted VDU output examples so they fit across the page;
> - Reformatted the user glossary;
> ... and a few other minor odds and ends.
>
> I've also changed some of the default fonts back to more standard font
> faces, with the exception of the TOCs. If there are problems, let me
> know!

Unfortunately, the light green and light violet are (still) quite difficult to 
read.  Why did you want text in a color?

On Sun, 27 Feb 2011 20:43:11 -0500, "Jeffrey W. Shook"
<31415926@optonline.net> wrote:

>I see what you mean about the PDF files.  They contain graphics of the 
>pages which look quite nice but the underlying OCR information can be 
>muddled.  I dug out the files in the archive at
>
>http://www.cpm.z80.de/manuals/archive/cpm3/cpm3-ms.zip
>
>which says it has the original source in AMIPRO v3.0 format.  In the 
>Powerdesk 8 viewer these look quite nice. I printed the User Guide to 
>the CutePDF writer and then tried extracting the text from the PDF file 
>it created.  There didn't seem to be any OCR errors.  I don't have 
>AMIpro on my computer at present but if I can find my Lotus software 
>disk I will see what the manuals look like in the original format. Did 
>you also look into this archive?
I'm sorry, Jeff, I should have clarified...
The "Ami Pro" manuals are actually in PostScript format. The PDF
versions are slightly edited (spell-checked) copies of the PS manuals.

I'm using the PS sources as my source. They contain all the OCR errors
and spelling and other mistakes. Other sites and users seem to have
used the same sources in their "cleaned" manuals - at least, they all
contain exactly the same OCR errors as the originals!

I'm not sure where Ami Pro came into it - perhaps Gaby used it to
format the OCRd text or something. I'm waiting to hear back from her
still...

I'll keep you posted.

Thanks for your continued interest and comments!

Cheers,
Pete

On Sun, 27 Feb 2011 13:43:04 -0800 (PST), Herbert Johnson
<herbrjohnson@gmail.com> wrote:

>Please keep to the original text. There's a history of "others" who
>have reconstructed their own version of some "lost" Digital Research
>manuals, from whole pieces of later manuals, plus their major edits.
>But "they" did not bother to note all their work, sources and changes.
>Now those pseduo-manuals may be confused with later, actual copies of
>those "lost" manuals.
Yes, I noticed in my trawling expeditions that there are more than one
version of the same manuals, with various bits left out and some
puzzling additions in others. FWIW, I'm using these manuals as sole
sources, since they seem to be complete.

>Also note: the manuals are probably American English, so you are
>"modernizing" them, not "modernising"! This is not awfully important
>but better to consider this point now than later.
I ain't "Merkinizing" them at all. While I'm sure we could have a very
interesting (and pointless! :) discussion of the merits and
disadvantages of the "two englishes", my aim in all this has been to
keep as true to the original as possible. Given we don't have access
to the originals, I'm doing my very best to be as conservative as
possible, while making the manuals as usable and readable as possible.
Not an easy balance!

>Strictly speaking, "Pete", only Gaby has a license from DRDOS.COM
>Inc., the owners of that Digital Research intellectual property, to
>host CP/M software and manuals. The email of permission is on Gaby's
>site. But in fact, other sites have copies in their archives.
Hmm. I've obviously misunderstood something there - although "hosting"
could be argued as public access, I'm sure they'd take a dim view of
anyone making free with their property!

Of course, I'm not editing them or modifying their content in any way,
just fixing errors that (I assume) were not in the originals, and that
the developers/current owners would not want anyway. The only changes
I'm making are to things like font faces and overall layout. But
that's a whole different ballgame if they haven't agreed to release
the data publically! I'll bring this up with Gaby.

>I hope you work with Gaby to provide her with your "restored"
>versions, as many people refer to the "unofficial CP/M archive" Gaby
>operates as the primary source for DRI documents and early software.
>Speaking for myself, thanks for your efforts, give her my regards as
>well.
That is my ultimate goal, to provide Gaby with fixed versions of the
documents she's not had time to work on. Her PDF conversions contain
nearly all the original (well, original OCR) errors, and she obviously
either missed them, or didn't have the resources at the time.

>Since you are obviously editing the text of these PDF'ed documents,
>I'll ask you. WOuld an additional, smaller text-only version of these
>manuals be "worth" the effort? Some PDF's are really fat because they
>are page images, not text with formatting. It doesn't matter for
>modern systems, but to put the text for convenience on a CP/M system
>with a small hard drive, bytes matter. I could imagine someone might
>make a CP/M 3.0 "help" system using text-only files, another example.
That's an excellent suggestion. Since I've had to convert through a
couple of ASCII-only tools, I have the "near ASCII" sources. It's only
a matter of half an hour's editing to remove tags and markup and
convert offsets to tabs, etc.

The diagrams in some of the manuals could easily be ASCII-fied, I even
have line-drawing software that I've used in the past. (There are no
circles, squiggles, or other "concept" graphics in any of the manuals
that I've seen, anyway - they're all rectangular and byte/word
blocks).

I'd like to finish what I've started in terms of fixing the rest of
the problems first, but I can say with some confidence that text-only
would be quite straightforward, and it would beat the heck out of any
PS- or PDF-to-ASCII conversion (been there, done that, with these
sources).

Worst-case, I can make the HTML intermediate copies available, then
anyone with a text editor and some time on their hands could make a go
of it!

I'll keep you informed!
Thanks for your interest, and your suggestions!

Cheers,
Pete

Hallo Pete,

Steven and I are talking about the text on your web page.

The colors are very hard to read.

Please make them black.
Henk Siewert

"Steven Hirsch" <snhirsch@gmail.com> schreef in bericht 
news:35GdnVBcg7NbnvbQnZ2dnUVZ_h6dnZ2d@giganews.com...
> Unfortunately, the light green and light violet are (still) quite 
> difficult to read.  Why did you want text in a color?
> 

On 02/28/2011 03:01 AM, Henk Siewert wrote:
> Hallo Pete,
>
> Steven and I are talking about the text on your web page.
>
> The colors are very hard to read.
>
> Please make them black.
> Henk Siewert

Yes, please.  IMHO colored text should be used very sparingly in anything 
other than advertising.  Visibility (or lack thereof) is one issue, but 
another is that a gray-scale printout is not usable (text too light or missing 
entirely).


> "Steven Hirsch"<snhirsch@gmail.com>  schreef in bericht
> news:35GdnVBcg7NbnvbQnZ2dnUVZ_h6dnZ2d@giganews.com...
>> Unfortunately, the light green and light violet are (still) quite
>> difficult to read.  Why did you want text in a color?
>>
>
>

PC Pete  wrote:
>  Herbert Johnson wrote:
>
> >Also note: the manuals are probably American English, so you are
> >"modernizing" them, not "modernising"! This is not awfully important
> >but better to consider this point now than later.
>
> I ain't "Merkinizing" them at all....I'm doing my very best
> to be as conservative as possible.

(Had to look up that term "Merkinize".) I only called this out because
spell-checkers can have American or British spellings and may make
changes you were not aware of. "Keeping to the original" is fine with
me.

> >Strictly speaking, "Pete", only Gaby has a license from DRDOS.COM
> >Inc., the owners of that Digital Research intellectual property, to
> >host CP/M software and manuals. The email of permission is on Gaby's
> >site. But in fact, other sites have copies in their archives.
>
> Hmm. I've obviously misunderstood something there - although "hosting"
> could be argued as public access, I'm sure they'd take a dim view of
> anyone making free with their property!

I don't mean to start any discussion of copyright. YOu can look over
the DRDOS email, it's on her site. I simply thought that in a public
discussion about editing and distributing a version of CP/M 3.0 docs,
it's reasonable to note Gaby's unique position as a licensed (but
unofficial) DRI archive, and why. It's something I pay some attention
to, myself. It's unusual in my opinion, that a 1970's computing
company even has a presence in the 21st century; more unusual for them
to release some of their older work as available for private use
without fees. No criticism intended.

> >I'll ask you. WOuld an additional, smaller text-only version of these
> >manuals be "worth" the effort?

> That's an excellent suggestion. Since I've had to convert through a
> couple of ASCII-only tools, I have the "near ASCII" sources. It's only
> a matter of half an hour's editing to remove tags and markup and
> convert offsets to tabs, etc.
>
> The diagrams in some of the manuals could easily be ASCII-fied, I even
> have line-drawing software that I've used in the past.

A text only version may be useful if it's little trouble. Don't feel
obliged to convert diagrams to ASCII art, however, except as you
choose on your own time.

I appreciate your considerations of my remarks. Thanks again for
restoring the CP/M 3.0 documents.

Herb Johnson

On Mon, 28 Feb 2011 08:22:51 -0500, Steven Hirsch <snhirsch@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On 02/28/2011 03:01 AM, Henk Siewert wrote:
>> Hallo Pete,
>>
>> Steven and I are talking about the text on your web page.
>>
>> The colors are very hard to read.
>>
>> Please make them black.
>> Henk Siewert
>
>Yes, please.  IMHO colored text should be used very sparingly in anything 
>other than advertising.  Visibility (or lack thereof) is one issue, but 
>another is that a gray-scale printout is not usable (text too light or missing 
>entirely).
Hi guys,

I'm sorry the page is so hard to read. I'm updating the site from my
laptop in my bedroom, which doesn't have the correct css links to the
page content. I've updated the site by removing the links temporarily,
which has fixed the colours. Meanwhile, I've made all the text black
temporarily. As it is, it's just a simple description of the documents
and what I've done, but I appreciate that it's annoying to read...

I thought you were talking about the document colours - no wonder I
couldn't find any green/blue shades you were talking about! In any
case, I've reverted the font colours in the document itself to B&W, it
does look less modern, but it is as clear as I can make it.

Mind you, you should see my inbox. You'd think I was rewriting the New
Testament! Some people declared that there were no such errors. When I
pointed them out (starting on page 2 of the foreword) one accused me
of putting the errors in my originals so I could "fix" them and so
make a name for myself. That kind of logic defies belief.

I'm going to finish this project, but I really wish I hadn't had such
good intentions in the first place. I can live without that kind of
attitude to work I wanted to do for the right reasons.

PC Pete  wrote:

> Mind you, you should see my inbox. You'd think I was rewriting the New
> Testament! Some people declared that there were no such errors. When I
> pointed them out (starting on page 2 of the foreword) one accused me
> of putting the errors in my originals so I could "fix" them and so
> make a name for myself. That kind of logic defies belief.
>
> I'm going to finish this project, but I really wish I hadn't had such
> good intentions in the first place. I can live without that kind of
> attitude to work I wanted to do for the right reasons.

Pete, speaking for myself I'm sorry you got some hostile responses,
and thanks for correcting some classic documents. I don't doubt that
OCR'ed manuals have errors.

There are, unfortunately, some hostile and "unbelievable" persons who
post in comp.os.cpm. That's as simple as I can put it. If you wish,
look up the posting history of any individual who gave you any grief.
"Google Groups" makes that easy enough. Most likely, you'll see that
the problem is with them. Don't let them drive you out of your
interests.

Herb Johnson
retrotechnology.com

On Sun, 27 Feb 2011 00:09:57 +1100, PC Pete
<PCPete@audiography.com.au> wrote:

>blah blah blah
The new user guide should be available on Gaby's site sometime over
the weekend. She's been wonderfuly positive about the changes, which
is great.

Interestingly (for me anyway), I've now had time to review the
original Ami Pro 3.0 sources from Gaby's site. What's interesting to
me is that these source docs contain exactly the same errors as the PS
and PDFs that are floating around on the net!

It looks very much as though these were created by DRI's owner company
from scanned sources. I doubt they could have been created in this
state from digital sources! I don't remember any LaTex to Ami Pro
converters, but then that's only me.

What else is interesting, is that John's really good CP/M 3 build site
has a slightly different version of the system guide - some OCR
mistakes have been fixed, but different ones appear throughout the
document. Given that it purports to be the same revision as what I'm
working on, that leads me to suspect there may be more than one source
out there, as opposed to what Herb and Gaby and the legal docs state.
Not surprising, I guess.

I'll keep everyone posted.

On Sun, 27 Feb 2011 13:43:04 -0800 (PST), Herbert Johnson
<herbrjohnson@gmail.com> wrote:

>I hope you work with Gaby to provide her with your "restored"
>versions, as many people refer to the "unofficial CP/M archive" Gaby
>operates as the primary source for DRI documents and early software.
>Speaking for myself, thanks for your efforts, give her my regards as
>well.
G'day Herb,

I've heard back from Gaby, and she's most supportive and pleased with
the new document(s).

She also said to send her warmest regards, and that she's glad you're
still in business!

She's a lovely lady alright (which I knew from our facebook
relationship, and regardless of whether or not she thought the
document changes were welcome - I include this for other readers).

Thanks again for your advice and support, it's very much appreciated.
Cheers,
PC (People Connecting) Pete...

On 28/02/2011 5:23 PM, PC Pete wrote:
> On Sun, 27 Feb 2011 13:43:04 -0800 (PST), Herbert Johnson
> <herbrjohnson@gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>> Please keep to the original text. There's a history of "others" who
>> have reconstructed their own version of some "lost" Digital Research
>> manuals, from whole pieces of later manuals, plus their major edits.
>> But "they" did not bother to note all their work, sources and changes.
>> Now those pseduo-manuals may be confused with later, actual copies of
>> those "lost" manuals.
> Yes, I noticed in my trawling expeditions that there are more than one
> version of the same manuals, with various bits left out and some
> puzzling additions in others. FWIW, I'm using these manuals as sole
> sources, since they seem to be complete.
>
>> Also note: the manuals are probably American English, so you are
>> "modernizing" them, not "modernising"! This is not awfully important
>> but better to consider this point now than later.
> I ain't "Merkinizing" them at all. While I'm sure we could have a very
> interesting (and pointless! :) discussion of the merits and
> disadvantages of the "two englishes", my aim in all this has been to
> keep as true to the original as possible. Given we don't have access
> to the originals, I'm doing my very best to be as conservative as
> possible, while making the manuals as usable and readable as possible.
> Not an easy balance!
> Cheers,
> Pete
>
Thanks for your interpretation of the original manuals. I do have an 
original of the Users Guide and the very same edition, Second Edition 
March 1983.  Having a quick look at the PDF shows a number of omission, 
additions and errors.

For example, right near the start on P2 of my copy (P1 of yours) it 
reads under COPYRIGHT "Copyright � 1982, 1983, by Digital Research."  In 
your copy it reads "Copyright (C) 1983 Digital Research Inc.   1982 and 
the word "by" have gone and an "Inc." appears.

Also, the last paragraph on the same page reads on my copy as:
"The CP/M Plus (CP/M Version 3) Operating System User's Guide was 
prepared using the Digital Research TEX Text Formatter and printed in 
the United States of America." while your PDF reads
"The CP/M Plus (CP/M Version 3) Operating System User's Guide was 
printed in the United States of America."

The Forward comes before the Table of Contents in my copy.  I dont have 
the time (nor inclination) to go through the whole document, but if the 
first few pages represent the rest of the manual, then I'd suggest 
someone re-scan in an original and start again.  A quick flip through 
also shows Figure 6.1 is missing as well as the 12 page Index.  Also 
most of the Tables do not have any internal lines in my copy and 
Appendix E is not in a table either.

I can scan in a few pages of mine for you if your interested, as that 
can help show the original layout, fonts, font colours, tables, etc. 
Just let me know and somewhere to send them.

We do intend to eventually scan in the CP/M Plus User's Guide, 
Programmers Guide and System Guide but that can be over a year away, we 
have more important Microbee documentation to scan in at the moment.

Cheers,
Alan

Just a quick note to say please keep up the good work restoring these
manuals.

On -28163-01--10 20:59, ChickenMan wrote:
 > Thanks for your interpretation of the original manuals. I do have an
 > original of the Users Guide and the very same edition, Second Edition
 > March 1983. Having a quick look at the PDF shows a number of omission,=

 > additions and errors.

So do i...

 > For example, right near the start on P2 of my copy (P1 of yours) it
 > reads under COPYRIGHT "Copyright =A9 1982, 1983, by Digital Research."=
 In
 > your copy it reads "Copyright (C) 1983 Digital Research Inc. 1982 and
 > the word "by" have gone and an "Inc." appears.
 >
 > Also, the last paragraph on the same page reads on my copy as:
 > "The CP/M Plus (CP/M Version 3) Operating System User's Guide was
 > prepared using the Digital Research TEX Text Formatter and printed in
 > the United States of America." while your PDF reads
 > "The CP/M Plus (CP/M Version 3) Operating System User's Guide was
 > printed in the United States of America."

On page 1, of the old pdf, witch are "source" for Pete,
You will find:

"This manual is reprinted by Commodore Business Machines Inc.
with the permission of Digital Research Inc."

so this is CBM's interpretation, not anybody else...

 > The Forward comes before the Table of Contents in my copy.

so it do in CBM's interpretation,... Pete's "messing around"...

 > I dont have
 > the time (nor inclination) to go through the whole document, but if th=
e
 > first few pages represent the rest of the manual, then I'd suggest
 > someone re-scan in an original and start again.

To my judge the CBM's interpretation is fair good,...
apart from those OCR errors witch should be fixed...!

 > A quick flip through
 > also shows Figure 6.1 is missing as well as the 12 page Index.

It's in the CBM's interpretation,... Pete's "messing around"...

Also important, i think, are that when "ChickenMan" point to
"Figure 6.1" I=92m able to go to TOC, find "Figure" and see:
"6-1 Overall ED Operation        6-4"

so flip to Section 6, page 4 and i find "Figure 6.1" in the
CBM's interpretation as well in the original User Guide...!

Maybe not important now in 2011, (28 years after),
but in some 28 more years...?

And there are:
   Programmer's Guide
   System Guide
to come,... (i'm scarred...!)
think about it...!

---snip---

 > We do intend to eventually scan in the CP/M Plus User's Guide,
 > Programmers Guide and System Guide but that can be over a year away, w=
e
 > have more important Microbee documentation to scan in at the moment.

Yes,... i do have the "Microbee Reference Manual vol 1", a huge volume.
<ole>

 > Cheers,
 > Alan
 >
 >
 >

On Wed, 02 Mar 2011 13:25:52 +1100, ChickenMan
<chickenman540@hotmail.com> wrote:

>I can scan in a few pages of mine for you if your interested, as that 
>can help show the original layout, fonts, font colours, tables, etc. 
>Just let me know and somewhere to send them.
>
>We do intend to eventually scan in the CP/M Plus User's Guide, 
>Programmers Guide and System Guide but that can be over a year away, we 
>have more important Microbee documentation to scan in at the moment.
G'day Alan,

If you could scan a couple of sample pages, that would be much
appreciated. You can send them to me at : PCPete {AT}audiography{DOT}
com{ DOT }au.

I think, given the feedback I'm getting, I do need to put a small
heading at the start of the document to explain why the layout (though
not the format) is different to what's already circulating out there.
Things like readability, printability, syntax fixes, that kind of
thing.

I'm definitely NOT trying to Xerox the originals in layout, font
selection, margins, page breaks, etc, as these were set up for a
particular printed format and binding, in a particular era, with a
particular audience - and none of this is valid anymore. There still
needs to be a perfect-as-possible digital record of that original,
please don't get me wrong, but I'm working to a perceived need, not an
historical requirement. Since I don't know what the original originals
looked like, that would be presumptuous of me anyway!

Thanks so much for the offer of a sample scan, and I'm really looking
forward to the Microbee manuals coming online too! I'm almost sorry I
sold my 256TC last year, although it did go to a good home!

Cheers, and good luck with the scanning project,

PCPete

On Sun, 27 Feb 2011 00:09:57 +1100, PC Pete
<PCPete@audiography.com.au> wrote:

>a bunch of stuff
Hi all,

This is a formal reason for republishing the DRI documents for CP/M 3.

Since there has been so much discussion and comment regarding the
layout, tables of contents, and so on, and since I've had to answer
piecemeal, here is the full description of the changes, and why I've
changed the documents.

This has been something of a catch-22 : if I include a disclaimer in
the text, that appeases some folks, but then others complain that it
wasn't in the original. What to do? :)

OK serious hat on... :=|

First, I believe there is a significant historical need to have exact
(or as near to exact as possible) digital facsimiles of the original,
as-published DRI CP/M 3 documents, without any change to format,
layout, margins, fonts, or pagination. That's *really* important - as
those who've watched my pointless search for "inerrant originals" will
appreciate!

However...

The original documents were published in an era, and to an audience,
in a particular physical format and binding, that is no longer
practical.

For example, the original page layout of one of the documents consumed
257 pages. The reformatted version I've released of the same document,
*with no change to the order, wording, or flow, and with vastly better
readability, as well as more additional tables of content*, is 134
pages. That's a saving of 123 pages (nearly 48%). I'm getting similar
(or better) "compression" for the other documents,while still
improving legibility, etc. that in itself is a pretty good reason for
chasing this will'o'the wisp!

So: Reason 1 for "butchering" the text : The text is more readable.
Better selection of fonts (although this could still be improved), and
clear (but hopefully not distracting) distinctions between examples,
plain text, console output, and syntactical descriptions means my eyes
hurt less at the end of a session.

Reason 2 : When I had the font readability issue fixed, I realised
there are (literally) thousands of OCR scanning errors in the text.
While some of these are simply annoying (like seeing hundreds of
examples of com- mand or para - graph), some errors are more
problematic (did the developers mean for the user to search for
COPYSYS*CDM, or COPYSYS.COM?), and some errors completely make the
text unreadable and unusable (especially in the code example sections
- think how easy mnemonics are to change by getting just one letter
wrong, while still "making sense"!!).

Reason 3 : The page flow and layout is wildly frustrating to technical
readers. It's difficult, if not impossible, to read a description for
a particular function without it being broken by a page break part way
down the page, hyphens in the borders, or (again) tables with no
borders and oversized figures. So wider margins, full text flow down
the page, and clear divisions between sections and subsections means
it's easier to take in large swathes of information without being
constantly interrupted by page breaks, unboxed tables of data, and so
on.

Other changes :
- The table of contents is harder to read than the text. It's less
useful, it doesn't contain hyperlinks to the requested function or
section, and it's broken up over 6 pages, instead of a much
easier-to-find 2 pages.

- I've added a final (post-body) table of ALL the commands described
but not called out in section 5. I've also cleaned up those examples
and formatted them so they're much more helpful and readable.

- I've removed the pointless and irrelevant "index of words", since
between the new tables of contents, hyperlinks, and searchability, the
words are faster to find than looking them up in the index anyway.
(Plus, it would take around a week of work just to duplicate the
pointless index anyway).

- I've added fairly elegant and readable page headers with page
numbering for instant "GPS" positioning :)

There is still much work to be done, but I'm doing my best to keep
these changes absolutely consistent across all the documents, to
improve each one specifically, according to its content and
readership, and to balance getting these documents available to other
interested parties with what I laughingly call "my life"...

No, these documents don't look exactly like the originals.
No, these documents do NOT change the text or wording one whit.
Yes, they include EVERY table, including the tables of contents
Yes, they include additional tables at the end of the documents.
Yes, some of the TOCs appear one page sooner than the originals.
Yes, the new pagination is reflected in ALL tables and references.
Yes, the new TOCs include hyperlinks into the document.

If you have a problem with any of that, I suggest you wait a year or
so until the true originals are released and use them, if you can.

I hope this explains my reasoning to your satisfaction!

Cheers,
PCPete

Complaints+whining>NUL:

PC Pete <PCPete@audiography.com.au> wrote:
(snip)

> This is a formal reason for republishing the DRI documents for CP/M 3.
 
(snip)

> First, I believe there is a significant historical need to have exact
> (or as near to exact as possible) digital facsimiles of the original,
> as-published DRI CP/M 3 documents, without any change to format,
> layout, margins, fonts, or pagination. That's *really* important - as
> those who've watched my pointless search for "inerrant originals" will
> appreciate!

Yes.  For people actually running the system now, it is more
important that the documents be readable than that the font and
formatting be historically accurate.

-- glen

On Mar 2, 4:13=A0pm, PC Pete <PCP...@audiography.com.au> wrote:
> On Sun, 27 Feb 2011 00:09:57 +1100, PC Pete
>
> <PCP...@audiography.com.au> wrote:
> >a bunch of stuff
>
> Hi all,
>
> This is a formal reason for republishing the DRI documents for CP/M 3.
>
[snip]
>
> I hope this explains my reasoning to your satisfaction!
>
> Cheers,
> PCPete
>
> Complaints+whining>NUL:

Hi Pete!  Thanks!  You are doing a great job and I appreciate your
contributions to the CP/M hobbyist community.

Please keep up the good work and use the modern formatting.  Good on
you!

Have a nice day!

Andrew Lynch

On Wed, 02 Mar 2011 13:25:52 +1100, ChickenMan <chickenman540@hotmail.com> wrote:

>I can scan in a few pages of mine for you if your interested, as that 
>can help show the original layout, fonts, font colours, tables, etc. 
>Just let me know and somewhere to send them.
>
>We do intend to eventually scan in the CP/M Plus User's Guide, 
>Programmers Guide and System Guide but that can be over a year away, we 
>have more important Microbee documentation to scan in at the moment.
>
>Cheers,
>Alan
G'day Alan!

I received the scans just fine, thank you very much for taking the time and effort!

However I'm unable to reply to your email address you sent the message from, I keep getting a 550 No Such User message from the aanet mailserver. Hence this message.

Could you email me again, or try sending from another address? I have some screenshots and samples I thought you might be interested to see.

I *believe* (though this is truly just a matter of faith, not empirical knowledge) that the bigpond mailserver isn't just being lazy or stupid... It does go into
la-la-land every week or so, but I've retried 3 times (for a total of 4 attempts to reply) with the same response.

FWIW, I've got the original DRI CP/M (2.2) manual, and the font formatting is identical to your scans. I've also found the exact dot matrix font used, as well as the
serif font (plain old TNR), which allows for a pretty reasonable facsimile of the original manual. I know it's not the point, but it was fun to see the same pixels on the
page...

Thanks,
Pete

On Mar 2, 4:36=A0pm, glen herrmannsfeldt <g...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
> PC Pete <PCP...@audiography.com.au> wrote:
>
> (snip)
>
> > This is a formal reason for republishing the DRI documents for CP/M 3.
>
> (snip)
>
> > First, I believe there is a significant historical need to have exact
> > (or as near to exact as possible) digital facsimiles of the original,
> > as-published DRI CP/M 3 documents, without any change to format,
> > layout, margins, fonts, or pagination. That's *really* important - as
> > those who've watched my pointless search for "inerrant originals" will
> > appreciate!
>
> Yes. =A0For people actually running the system now, it is more
> important that the documents be readable than that the font and
> formatting be historically accurate.
>
> -- glen

This talk of a  pointless search for "inerrant originals" and
questions about what the original actually said makes me wonder
whether you're aware of these scans:

http://www.bombjack.org/commodore/commodore/Digital_Research_CP-M_Plus_Vers=
ion_3_OS%20Users_Programmers_and_System_Guides.pdf

A LARGE (69MB) pdf file containing excellent (and correct ;-)
searchable scans of all four manuals.

mike

On Fri, 11 Mar 2011 09:51:25 -0800 (PST), MikeS <dm561@torfree.net> wrote:
>This talk of a  pointless search for "inerrant originals" and
>questions about what the original actually said makes me wonder
>whether you're aware of these scans:
>
>8< SNIP >8
>A LARGE (69MB) pdf file containing excellent (and correct ;-)
>searchable scans of all four manuals.

I dunno whether to swear or bless you, Mike... :)

It's catch-22 at its best : if I didn't get into a sweat/lather about transforming the only manuals I could find that appeared related to CP/M and DRI, then you wouldn't
have been able to provide us with the link.

I'm sure there's more than one user on board who will get a lot from the scanned manuals you've linked to.

Me? I'm gonna do a beyootiful reconstruction of all the sourcecode (which is the only really critical information missing from the reconstructions) and update my manuals,
just for completeness' sake.

Then I'm going to have a strong drink, a strong smoke, and a little lie-down! %=)

I'll notify the "relevant authorities" about the availability of this document, and let Gaby and the other Mike know this exists, and to get in touch with whoever manages
that domain to see about hosting copies where they'll do the most good...

Thanks so much for taking the trouble to update me/us, I really appreciate your effort!

(I did see the bombjack URL appear in some of my search links, but I wasn't open to looking for "commodore" as a referent... just goes to show, I can learn something new
every day!)

Cheers mate!
PCPete

On -28163-01--10 20:59, MikeS wrote:
 >
 > This talk of a  pointless search for "inerrant originals" and
 > questions about what the original actually said makes me wonder
 > whether you're aware of these scans:
 >
 > 
http://www.bombjack.org/commodore/commodore/Digital_Research_CP-M_Plus_Version_3_OS%20Users_Programmers_and_System_Guides.pdf
 >

Or this on bitsavers.org:
"http://bitsavers.org/pdf/digitalResearch/
cpm_plus/CPM_Plus_Programmers_Guide_Jan83.pdf"

"http://bitsavers.org/pdf/digitalResearch/
cpm_plus/CPM_Plus_System_Guide_Jan83.pdf"

"http://bitsavers.org/pdf/digitalResearch/
cpm_plus/CPM_Plus_Users_Guide_Mar83.pdf"

Nice scan,... Thanks Al...!

<ole>

On 3/11/11 2:48 PM, Ole Christensen wrote:

> Nice scan,... Thanks Al...!
>

You're welcome. I was a little surprised that no one had mentioned it.

On Fri, 11 Mar 2011 15:24:38 -0800, Al Kossow <aek@bitsavers.org> wrote:

>On 3/11/11 2:48 PM, Ole Christensen wrote:
>
>> Nice scan,... Thanks Al...!
>>
>
>You're welcome. I was a little surprised that no one had mentioned it.

Yeah, so am I. Maybe it was too easy to find? :) I know in "all my searching" I couldn't find an easy reference, and the search tool on this UG didn't find any reference
at all to it (but then my usenet server has only a limited history).

Still, it would have been useful to use as a reference to correct the digitised guides.

Ah well. I've learned my lesson now, and it definitely won't happen again. Oh wha tafoo liam!!!

Thanks for letting me know about these manual scans!
PCPete