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XX-64B78-00

March 1983

9 pages

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Document:	QV053-GZ Rainbow 100 Technical Documentation Volume 1
Order Number:	XX-64B78-00
Revision:
Pages:	9
Original Filename:	http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/rainbow/QV053-GZ_Rainbow_100_Technical_Documentation_Volume_1_Mar83.pdf

OCR Text

RainbowTM

100
Technical Documentation
Volume 1

aV053-GZ

RainbowTM

100
Technical Documentation
Volume 1

digital equipment corporation

First Printing, March 1983
© Digital Equipment Corporation 1983. All Rights Reserved.

The information in this document is subject to change without notice and should
not be construed as a commitment by Digital Equipment Corporation. Digital
Equipment Corporation assumes no respom,ibility for any errors that may
appear in this document.
The software described in this document is furnished under a license and may
only be used or copied in accordance with the terms of such license.
No responsibility is assumed for the use or reliability of software on equipment
that is not supplied by DIGITAL or its affiliated companies.
CP/M®, CP/M®-80 and CP/M®-86 are registered trademarks of Digital
Research Inc.
Z80® is a registered trademark of Zilog, Inc.
8088® is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation.
The following are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation:

~DmDDmDm.
DEC
DECmate
o ECsystem-10
DECSYSTEM-20
DECUS
DECwriter
DIBOL

MASS BUS
PDP

P/OS
Professional
. Rainbow
RSTS
RSX

UNIBUS
VAX
VMS
VT
Work Processor

The postage-prepaid READER'S COMMENTS form on the last page of this
document requests the user's critical evaluation to assist us in preparing future
documentation.

Printed in U.S.A.

RainbowTM 100 Technical Documentation
Volume 1
Rainbow ™ 100 Recommended Software Practices
Rainbow ™100 An Introduction to Programming the Rainbow ™100 Personal Computer
Rainbow ™ 100 Terminal Emulation Manual
Rainbow™ 100 PC100 System Specification
Rainbow™ 100 PC100 System Module Specification
Rainbow ™ 100 CP/M-86/80 Software Design and Maintenance Manual
Rainbow ™ 100 CP/M-86/80 BIOS Listings

AV-VS2SA-TV

RainbowTM

100
Recommended Software Practices

digital equipment corporation

First Printing, March 1983

The information in this document is subject to change without notice and should
not be construed as a commitment by Digital Equipment Corporation. Digital
Equipment Corporation assumes no responsibility for any errors that may
appear in this document.
The software described in this document is furnished under a license and may
only be used or copied in accordance with the terms of such license.
No responsibility is assumed for the use or reliability of software on equipment
that is not supplied by DIGITAL or its affiliated companies.
CP/M®, CP/M®-80 and CP/M®-86 are registered trademarks of Digital
Research Inc.
Z80® is a registered trademark of Zilog, Inc.
8088® is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation.
The following are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation:

~B~BD~D'·
DEC
DECmate
DECsystem-10
DECSYSTEM-20
DECUS
DECwriter
DIBOL

MASS BUS
PDP

P/OS
Professional
Rainbow
RSTS
RSX

UNIBUS
VAX
VMS
VT
Work Processor

The postage-prepaid READER'S COMMENTS form on the last page of this
document requests the user's critical evaluation to assist us in preparing future
documentation.

Printed in U.S.A.

All products should make use of the Rainbow keyboard and the
special keys in the editing region of that keyboard. The use
of the HELP and DO keys is particularly desired, but most
menu operated programs can also make use of the Next Screen,
Previous Screen, Select, and Find keys as well.
Data entry
sequences are often improved by the use of the Insert and
Remove keys. It is most important that all programs are able
to ignore the escape sequences generated by unsupported
function keys. Otherwise, a user could inadvertantly crash
or confuse your program by pressing an unimplemented key.
As a matter of good practice, do not use the ctrl-S or ctrl-Q
keys as command keys since these are ANSI flow control
functions and will invariably cause difficulty if sent to
ANSI compatible peripherals.

Products that generate information that would be desired in
spread sheet format for further manipulation by the user
should have an option that creates Microsoft SYLK compatible
ASCII input files.
Conversely, reading SYLK format will
allow spread sheet data to be used by other programs as
input.

Products that change printer or terminal or communications
setting should reset them to their nominal values during a
normal exit.

10.

products should run on a basic Rainbow 100 configuration in a
48K TPA and still do useful work. If this is not practical,
then the memory requirements should take in account the fact
that Rainbow's expand in 64K or 192K increments.

11.

Digital intends to implement Concurrent CP/M and GSX graphics
in Rainbow products. Compatibility with these products will
help to ensure the largest possible market for your software.

Rainbow 100 Recommended Software Practices
The following practices have been established to ensure a level of
user convenience and consistency in the operation of the Rainbow 100
Applications Software.
Please adhere to these standards wherever applicable.
Since these
points reflect the general expectations that will have been set. for
the customer by DEC provided applications software, you should make it
clear in your product literature whether your software conforms so
that customers are given the proper expectations before they buy.
1.

All products should have an introductory screen which gives
the Rainbow name, the product name, and the Producer name in
double height, double width lettering. The bottom line of
the screen should show the copyright owner and date. This
screen should appear at least 3 seconds during loading.
It
is most desirable to overlap the display of this screen with
the loading of the main software, file opening, etc.

All products should be menu operated whenever that style of
operation is appropriate. Menu selections should be spelled
out on the screen or available in help screens.
The best
menu systems are mneumonic, but only if the mneumonics are
well chosen. Another good form of menu operation is to point
at the item by moving the cursor keys, then pressing the
"Select" key on the editing keypad.

All products that generate printed reports should have the
provision for selecting the printer pitch (horizontal and
vertical), printer font, and printer speed using the DEC
universal escape sequences.
In addition, all reports that
are generated for the printer should be able to be shown on
the screen in 132 column mode. Also, all reports should be
able to be directed to the disk using a standard CP/M file
identification.
Reports should not contain more than 131
character lines on disk output and should be compatible with
the Select word processor in the character set.

All products should be coded using the DEC international
character set which uses 8 bit characters for input and
display.
•

All products should use both 80 and 132 column display modes,
and have these modes selectable by the user or set according
to the processing situation. Do not rely on the user using
the SETUP facility to adjust the screen width since it will
then be cumbersome to go from one program to another.

All products should use the Memory Mapped Video if they run
on the 8088 side of the machine.
The Video should be
controlled by the "interface layer" firmware calls rather
than direct manipulation of the hardware or display memory.
This will ensure compatibility with future Rainbow series
products and operating systems.