Under the assumption that the reader is an assembly language programmer familiar with ASM and DDT, the material in this manual is presented at a somewhat advanced level. For others less experienced who would benefit from an introduction to these topics, a good place to find such an introduction would be in “CP/M Revealed,” published by Hayden.
Programs that run under CP/M 2.2 will run without modification under RP/M. However, console and disk processing procedures under RP/M are similar to CP/M; they are not identical. RP/M assumes a video display console. RP/M file open functions search simultaneously in user area zero and in the current user area. File delete, rename, and close functions, search only in the current user area. After bringing up RP/M, go to each nonzero user area containing active files and rename there any file having the same name as an active file in user area zero. Common access to files in user area zero is a major improvement; techniques for accommodating the minor disadvantage alluded to here are discussed further at the end of Chapter 1.