PCN 090 ======= Handy Box Of Tricks ------------------- Philips has joined the IBM compatible bandwagon with its portable computer - the P2000C. Brendin Lewis puts the machine through its paces and reveals whether it has a fighting chance against high odds Better known for its household products, particularly televisions, Philips is launching itself on to small business computer market with the P2000C. In addition to the tried and tested CP/M 80 operating system, two 640K floppy disks, 64K of RAM and an IEEE 488 interface board, our review model also included a prototype board, which comprises an 8088 and 256K of RAM. As well as allowing the system to run MSDOS, this allows a measure of IBM compatibility, which makes it interesting. First Impressions ----------------- Philips has picked a striking shade of yellow for its packing case, manuals and disk drives. The packaging itself is of a novel design. It's quite tall and slim and, by providing inset hand holds, it is remarkably easy to carry the 30lbs box of tricks around. Once out of its box, the machine holds a few more surprises. It has no carrying handle - instead it sports a shoulder strap similar to a camera's. This serves a dual purppose: it is used to move the machine around and holds the keyboard in place. Two spring-loaded clips allow the strap to be removed but at the same time they release their hold on the keyboard. It makes quite a nice change these days to see a keyboard that does not conform to the IBM standard. The keys are split into three main sections. To the left are the normal alphanumeric keys. The layout shows few changes to the normal layout except that a Super Shift (similar to an Alt key) has been added. The only other change, which takes a bit of getting used to, is the position of the control key - instead of finding it in the third row, there is one on either side of the space bar. The next group of keys is mainly used for word processing and other packages. There are also cursor keys and various keys with strange icons printed on them. The others are marked Search, Delete, and Insert. The final keypad has standard numeric keys plus two function keys and a key marked with a sideways 's' icon, which dumps the contents of the screen to the printer when used with the Super Shift key. Overall, the 93 keys are of a high quality and are comfortable to use. The one problem I found concerns the keys with large keytops like Return, Shift, Back Space, Super Shift and the '+' on the numeric keypad. All are weak, as they are only supported centrally by the keyswitch. It is possible to put in dummy keyswitches under the keytops for support and Philips should look into this, as I am sure there will be problems with broken keytops. Storage ------- Once set up, the system is visually pleasing. The two 640K half-height disk drives are to the left. A small compartment just to the left of them holds the keyboard cable during transit, but is quite handy for placing spare floppy disks while swapping them around. The green screen monitor sits in the centre of the unit and accommodates 24 lines by 80 columns of video text. To the left of the unit are situated the on/off switch, the reset button and the monitor brightness control. The on/off switch is the push button type, which I frown on because of its susceptability to being accidentally pressed, and this is especially true when the switch is front mounted. The reset button is nicely recessed into the cabinet also, again preventing accidental knocks. At the rear of the machine are all but one of the connectors (the keyboard plugs into the side of the case). The mains socket is neatly fitted into a small recess. When in transit this has a plastic cover thus keeping the mains lead in check. Two 25-way D-type conncetors are used to connect the printer and modem while a seven-pin DIN socket is used to connect the external monitor. The two remaining connectors are both PCB edge connectors; both the hard disk and the external floppy disk unit are connected via these. Internally, the machine is quite cluttered, making servicing quite difficult. The Z80 section of the machine takes up a lot of room, housing two large boards, one for the terminal section and one for the computer. One of these is mounted horizontally at the bottom of the cabinet and the other vertically along the back. The switch mode power supply is neatly positioned to one side of the unit, while the two disk drives counterbalance it on the other side. The system is based on not one but two Z80s, both running at 4MHz (2MHz when accessing the ROMs). The first is the normal CPU and deals with the running of applications software. The other is an I/O processor, dealing with printers or the dedicated 32K of memory mapped video RAM set saide for graphics. The graphics capabilities available are 512 x 252 in high-resolution mode (single colour) and 256 x 252 medium-resolution with four grey scale (or green in this case). The second board is the terminal board connected to the CPU board and running its own dedicated software from an 8K byte ROM. The CPU board can also be connected to other terminals if the internal terminal board is unavailable. There is space on the rear of the machine for a terminal connector, but it is sealed so obviously this facility is not yet available. Interfaces contained within the system consist of two V24 data communications serial ports - one for a printer, the other for a modem, which can be run from 75 baud to 19,200 baud; an external video output connector designed for the Philips 12" standalone monitor; external floppy disk capabilities; and a SASI interface for an external hard disk unit. Internally, only one slot is available for expansion. The connector is mounted on the bottom PCB and is quite difficult to get at. The options available for this slot include a 256K RAM board for use as a RAMdisk by the CPU board, an IEE488 interface allowing the control of up to 15 devices including most types of automated laboratory equipment. The one limitation is that no device must be more than 20 metres away from the machine which shouldn't pose any difficulties. While operating the interface, the computer runs a modified version of Basic called IECBasic, designed especially for control purposes. The other option is the 8088 Copower boad, the latest development from Philips. The 256K of RAM on this board can also be used as a RAMdisk when the 8088 is not in use. This allows the system to run MSDOS. However, MSDOS is not loaded in the normal manner. On this system, CP/M 80 must first load, then a utility called 'msboot' is run. This prompts for the MSDOS system disk, which then in turn loads the operating system. Documentation ------------- Five manuals make up the documentation for this system; three for the Machine and one each for the Wordstar and Calcstar packages. The operator guide falls well short of expectations. The whole manual could make up the first character in a normal user guide. It deals only with the very basic aspects of using the system, such as how to unpack it and switch it on. The CP/M user guide offers little more in the way of information and only scratches the surface of the subject. The only saving grace in the documentation section is the 8088 Copower board user manual. This goes into some depth, covering MSDOS, IBM compatibility and sharing disk facilities. Though it is only a preliminary guide, both the contents and the layout are good. The documents relating to Wordstar and Calcstar were the original Micro-Pro manuals. Both were self-assembly - if they were pre-assembled, no doubt someone would have noticed that Wordstar had grown 'too big for its boots'. The pages in the Wordstar guide wouldn't fit comfortably into the folder provided. Overall, the Micro-Pro documentation was of a far higher standard than that produced by Philips. If, on the other hand, you wish to do more with the system than just run applications software, I thoroughly recommend the purchase of two other manuals produced by Philips. The CP/M Reference Guide, which takes a much more detailed look at the inner workings of CP/M on the P2000C, covers all the utilities like ED (the editor). ASM (the assembler) and DDT (the debugger) in some detail, as well as BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) and BDOS (Basic Disk Operating System). The other, and far more important, manual is the System Reference and Service Guide. It covers in great detail such subjects as the I/O ports and the use of machine code for accessing the disk drives for test purposes. It also contains a full list of keyboard codes plus control and escape codes for the video driver. In Use ------ When the system is first powered up, control is taken up by the PL (initial program loader) ROM. This tries to load CP/M first from drive 1 and then, if unsuccessful, from drive 2. If it still fails to find a system disk it prompts with 'System disk?'. By pressing escape, control can be passed over to the system monitor. This allows the user following features: compare memory blocks, dump memory, read disk trace, write disk track, fill memory, execute froma specified address, move memory block, read or write to I/O ports, output all results to the printer, alter memory locations and find a string in memory. All these are no doubt familiar to machine code users except possibly the disk read and write commands. The disk read facility simply reads a specified track and outputs any error encountered. The write function outputs data to disk two, side two, track nine for read test purposes. The escape key must not be pressed before the 'System disk?' prompt, as doing so causes a ROM error and the screen fills with the letter U. If this occurs, the only remedy I found was a reset. If the IPL does find a system disk, it loads CP/M in double quick time. The operating system is well implemented on this machine to allow maximum free user memory. The BDOS takes up 4K and the BIOS only 1K. This leaves 59K as the TPA (Transient Program Area), or more simply, user memory. Using MSDOS is quite messy because of the swapping around of disks. I found that the best results were obtained by putting the CP/M system disk in drive 2 and loading it, auto booting msboot and leaving the MSDOS disk in drive one. This is especially important when using IBM programs which hang. All that was needed was to open drive one, reset, wait for CP/M to load and then close drive one. The only software available to run under MSDOS was MBasic 86, which worked well enough. I tried also to load some IBM Basic programs, but they didn't run, because Basica uses different tokens, I think. Software -------- Two well known software packages come as standard with the machine, Wordstar and Calcstar. Because not all the keys on the keyboard correspond with the Wordstar commands, the package includes command stickers to place on the keytops. Other software available includes MBasic, a business graphics package and the Sage Accounting System. Packages are also available to run under CP/M 80 though how many will run under MSDOS, I don't know. All the usual CP/M utility software is included on the system disk but the Config program allows more features than usual. It is possible to program all the keys on the keyboard and also the video attributes for the characters. Verdict ------- As far as CP/M on the system is concerned, the P2000C is a very well designed machine, it's well thought out and reasonably priced. Good, reliable software is available immediately, which is always a good sign. The addition of MSDOS and IBM compatibility is not so nearly as good. Philips appears to be under increasing pressure from other IBM compatibles and has responded by quickly putting together a board to meet this threat. It hasn't worked. The Copower board can only be recommended if you want another operating system and more memory, or you need to run a specific piece of IBM software. But as a machine that runs MSDOS and CP/M (and it is possible to run them concurrently sometimes), P2000C has a lot going for it. Specifications -------------- System: Philips P2000C Price: £995 to £1,990 Processor: Two Z80 4MHz, 8088 with Copower board ROM: 16K 8K-terminal, 4K-IPL, 4K character generator RAM: 64K use, 32K graphics. Copower board adds 256K RAM disk board adds 256K Screen: 80 x 25 or 512 x 252 high, 256 x 252 medium Keyboard: 93 keys, function, cursor, editing Interfaces: Two serials, video out, external floppy and hard disks, various plug-in boards Operating System: CP/M 80 or MSDOS with Copower board Software: Wordstar and Calcstar and Basic86 Distributor: Kingsway Data Systems, 09328-68911