[CCTECH] Re: any ISIS info out there?

From: Derek Peschel <dpeschel_at_eskimo.com>
Date: Wed Jun 26 00:46:26 2002

On Mon, Jun 24, 2002 at 08:13:12PM +0000, Joe wrote:
[I put returns in your text]

> ISIS is a VERY primitive system IMO. It only has six commands total

My original point was that it is less primitive (in most ways) than CP/M.

> (IIRC) and the file systems is truely STRANGE. I've been wondering

If you count the programming tools, the commands are:

        the CLI
        DEBUG (built-in command)

        ATTRIB
        COPY
        DELETE
        DIR
        EDIT
        FORMAT
        RENAME
        SUBMIT

        BINOBJ
        HEXOBJ
        OBJHEX

        LINK
        LOCATE
        LIB
        ASM80
        PLM80
        ICE80
        UPM

Admittedly there are no TYPE or DUMP commands but you could easily write
them (and you can use COPY to type files). CP/M and early MS-DOS came
with more or less the same commands as above.

Why is the file system strange? It has a boot track, disk label, directory,
blocks of pointers to data, and blocks of data. The Apple ][ DOS file
system, and probably others, work pretty much the same way. And ISIS
records file length to the nearest byte _unlike_ CP/M.

ISIS does have "magic" files that let you access the disk label, boot track,
and directory, but that's a _good_ thing (and other file systems, like
VMS and I think FILES-11, have the same feature).

> about the system calls too. My manuals mention them but don't provide
> ANY details and I have a pretty complete set of manuals. What system

The manual I have describes the system calls pretty well. It doesn't
describe the format of the "magic" files or how to handle wildcards.

> are you running it on? I currently have a 800, an 880 and 235 plus
> another 235 that I'm storing for someone else.

I'm not. As I said in my original post, I only have the manual and it's
not even mine. And I don't know the chronology of the MDSs either.

BTW the manual is for version II. I know Version I lacked some features
like relocatable object files.

-- Derek
Received on Wed Jun 26 2002 - 00:46:26 BST