Please add support for Amstrad PCW (and text-mode CP/M) to TRSE

[zzarko]

Amstrad PCW is a Z80-based CP/M machine. It uses 3" disks that are, if I'm not mistaken, the same format as CPC 6128 disks and same tools for assembling them is used. I have successfully used dsktrans to make PCW DSK image from directory of files with:

dsktrans -itype rcpmfs <directory> <image.dsk>

dsktrans is part of libdsk:
https://www.seasip.info/Unix/LibDsk/

As a minimum, directory with files to transfer into dsk image should have these (they can be extracted from PCW disks):

• setdef.com
• submit.com
• j14cpm3.ems
• profile.sub
• COM program to run
  To make the COM program to autoboot, content of profile.sub should be:

setdef [order = (sub,com)]
<com_program_name>

where com_program_name is the name of generated COM executable file. Also, profile.sub must be in DOS format, with DOS line endings.

Good compilation of PCW software can be found here:
http://8bitchip.info/oub/Amstrad%20PCW/Amstrad_PCW_8256_Games_Archive_1.1.tar.gz
(one can extract the needed files from there, also using dsktrans)

Joyce is a cross-platform emulator for PCW:
https://www.seasip.info/Unix/Joyce/index.html

The emulator is a bit picky about dsk file location, on Linux they must be placed inside "~/Joyce/Disks" and then you can run the emulator with:

xjoyce -a <dsk_image>

Maybe there is another way, but I haven't found one so far. Actually, to overcome this, I made another directory, "~/Joyce/Dsks" and made "~/Joyce/Disks" to be a symbolic link to "~/Joyce/Dsks". Then I use this script to run dsk image from anywhere I want:

#!/bin/bash

DIR="$( cd "$( dirname "$1" )" >/dev/null 2>&1 && pwd )"
rm /home/zzarko/Joyce/Disks
ln -s "$DIR" ~/Joyce/Disks 
xjoyce -a "$1"
rm ~/Joyce/Disks
ln -s ~/Joyce/Dsks ~/Joyce/Disks

CP/M programs must start from address $0100. There is a GPL2 C compiler for CP/M called MESCC:
https://github.com/MiguelVis/mescc
In there there is a manual, ZSC.DOC which states amongs other things:

Small  C programs should start with a statement: "#include CRUN2.LIB".The
run time routines in CRUN2.LIB include an initial section which  will  set  up
the  stack  and  then  call  the  function  "main()" which must exist in all C
programs.  The group of routines in CRUN2.LIB are essential  in  all  Small  C
programs,  except  for  the  "getp"  and  "putp"  functions.   The other three
libraries can be #included if required.  CONIO2.LIB  contains  functions  that
will  normally  be  needed for CP/M character and string I/O from the console,
FILE2.LIB (which assumes CONIO2.LIB is also present) can be #included if files
are going to be used.  NUMIO2.LIB contains some routines in  C  for  inputting
and outputting decimal and hexadecimal numbers.

Inside mentioned linbraries is the code to inteface with the CP/M OS. I do not know would it be safe to include that source, but it is GPL2, so maybe to ask the author?

So far I have been using this CPM emulator to run Z80 CP/M code:
https://github.com/jhallen/cpm
That one runs Z80 code at full speed of host computer, so it is not a good emulator of any specific machine, but it can be used to test the generated code for text-only programs very easily:

./cpm <com_program_name>

The same guy that made MESCC also made libraries for Amstrad PCW, all also GPL:
https://github.com/MiguelVis/xpcw
I guess those can be useful.

Well, that is more or less all I know about Amstrad PCW emulation and programming. If I can help with anything else, please ask, and I'll try.