[HN Gopher] The History of CP/M (1980)
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The History of CP/M (1980)
Author : susam
Score : 55 points
Date : 2024-04-09 16:03 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.retrotechnology.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.retrotechnology.com)
| krylon wrote:
| > Due to a slight problem of undercapitali7ation[sic], I found
| this incredibly low price still a bit high.
|
| Alas, a situation I am only too familiar with, even though
| computers and peripherals are so much cheaper these days. Also I
| love the way he phrased that.
| wiremine wrote:
| Very cool story. For those who don't know what CP/M is, here's
| some background:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M
|
| LT;DR: It was a disk operating system before DOS.
| dfawcus wrote:
| I've been meaning to run up MP/M in an emulator for a while
| now, and have a play.
|
| A multi-user, multi-tasking, multi-threading[1], and multi-
| terminal real time OS, with a limited form of job control.
|
| Not bad for 1979/1980 on an 8080 or Z80.
|
| [1] when non bank-switched, or with constraints when bank
| switched.
| browningstreet wrote:
| I'll just leave this here:
|
| "The core of ZCPR3 is an enhancement of your normal CP/M 2.2
| operating system (ZCPR3 isn't for CP/M Plus)."
|
| https://www.5dkd.kc85.info/index.php/magazines-mainmenu/morr...
|
| (Cert isn't valid so you'll get a warning..)
| smackeyacky wrote:
| Gary Kildall was a legend. YouTube "Computer Chronicles", he
| appears in a lot of the 1980s episodes.
| Findecanor wrote:
| There are several biographies on him on Youtube as well.
| Included among these is a special episode that Computer
| Chronicles made about him after his death.
| fizfaz wrote:
| https://archive.org/details/dr_dobbs_journal_vol_05_201803/p...
| to read it in context. It appeared in the "All-CP/M Issue!" of
| Dr. Dobbs
| smokel wrote:
| Also interesting in this context is the podcast series "The
| Advent of Computing" [1] by Sean Haas.
|
| Episode 36 is specifically about CP/M, and there are several
| episodes that paint the history of the x86 architecture that
| we're still working on today. A real treat!
|
| [1] https://adventofcomputing.com/
| schlopper wrote:
| Having just completed a CP/M 3.0 BIOS for my homebrew Z80
| machine, I am in awe at the amount of planning and foresight that
| went into it. The fact that you can write a piece of custom code
| in 2024 (for hardware that didn't even exist back then) and link
| it with the Digital Research binaries from the 70's to have a
| fully-functional and compatible O/S that is able to run almost
| any software written for CP/M in the past 40 years is just crazy.
|
| Unlike CP/M 2.x, CP/M 3 allows for banked memory and disk
| data/directory buffers, resulting in a lot more usable memory for
| applications (Transient Program Area) and faster disk access.
| Although with an SD/CF card, the CPU is more the bottleneck than
| the disk I/O.
|
| The project was both nostalgic and informative - trying to
| maintain performance while counting every byte of code has shed
| some great insights into low-level O/S design.
| henry_flower wrote:
| His autobiography in the epub format:
| https://gitlab.com/sigwait/computer_connections
| gumby wrote:
| I miss those days, and this kind of writing (I didn't actually
| touch a computer until '78 and that was a PDP-10).
|
| Compare the tone and content to Gate's famous "An Open Letter to
| Hobbyists":
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists
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(page generated 2024-04-09 23:02 UTC)