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BobD

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Joined: 07/12/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 935

Posted: 08:31am 15 Oct 2014

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For those of us who are beyond a certain age and still haven't succumbed to one of the various memory failures that abound with age, here is a story about CP/M. If you have to ask what CP/M is then this story may not be for you.

This year is the 40th anniversary of the creation of CP/M. We have come a long way in those 40 years.

The link is to an article by David Gewirtz from ZDnet and has a link in it to the Computer History Museum. That link is the one to follow after reading David's story. You will find that link part way through and also in David's last paragraph.

TassyJim

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Joined: 07/08/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 6269

Posted: 09:59am 15 Oct 2014

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I still have lots of CP/M books and a CP/M rom for the Microbee.
Do you need a copy of Wordstar?

Jim

VK7JH
MMedit

Grogster

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Joined: 31/12/2012
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 9589

Posted: 02:16pm 15 Oct 2014

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Fascinating read. How far we have come.

Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!

paceman
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Joined: 07/10/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 1329

Posted: 02:16pm 15 Oct 2014

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TassyJim said I still have lots of CP/M books and a CP/M rom for the Microbee.
Do you need a copy of Wordstar?
Jim

Or maybe Visicalc - an American colleague of mine in Boston went to MIT with the bloke who "invented" Visicalc.

Greg

muddy0409

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Joined: 15/06/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 125

Posted: 02:20pm 15 Oct 2014

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sh*t, Wordstar, visicalc.....I guess I am officially gettin' on.

Don't poo poo conspiracy theories.
Remember that everything ever discovered started somewhere as a theory.

panky

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Joined: 02/10/2012
Location: Australia
Posts: 1114

Posted: 01:53am 16 Oct 2014

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I also have lots of info on cp/m Jim, including a full set of the original Digital Research manuals. I also have full listings of zcpr2, an updated cp/m environment operating system. I had a fergusson bb2 with dual shugart dsdd 8" floppy drives and a honywell monitor and kbd but all the hardware got lost in a move some years back

except the 8inch floppies themselves which I still have (cp/m, zcpr2, wordtar, visicalc, a database of sorts, basic, forth, z80 assembler and full source for zcpr2.)

Anyone out there with a bb2 stiĺl operational?

Doug.

... almost all of the Maximites, the MicromMites, the MM Extremes, the ArmMites, the PicoMite and loving it!

paceman
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Joined: 07/10/2011
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Posts: 1329

Posted: 02:13am 16 Oct 2014

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I thought they were 7" floppies Doug, or was that a later breakthrough!

CircuitGizmos

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Joined: 08/09/2011
Location: United States
Posts: 1427

Posted: 04:34am 16 Oct 2014

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There actually were no such things as 8" floppies. All the guys with 5.25 inch floppies just claimed that they were 8 inches.

Micromites and Maximites! - Beginning Maximite

CircuitGizmos

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Posted: 04:35am 16 Oct 2014

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I typed that with a straight face.

Micromites and Maximites! - Beginning Maximite

WhiteWizzard
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Joined: 05/04/2013
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 2932

Posted: 09:36am 16 Oct 2014

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Oh boy - I feel embarrassed to say I'm used to 3.5" floppies

Actually, I seem to remember they referred to them as 'Hard'

(that makes it even worse I guess!!!)

JohnS
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Joined: 18/11/2011
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 4036

Posted: 10:17am 16 Oct 2014

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aka Stiffies

ho hum.

I wrote drivers for CP/M (*), i.e. BIOSes, more than once.

Going from 48KB to 64KB RAM was so impressive. And single-sided 8" floppies to DS ones - luxury. Hard to believe.

I rather liked DDT.

I think PIP got its name from the DEC utility of that name. (Peripheral Interchange Program, ye gods what a silly name.)

(*) also for MP/M, CP/M-86, MP/M-86, MS-DOS, UCSD p-System, Coherent, XENIX and various others.

John

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