From: "Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner" <spc(a)armigeron.com> and
the Great Richard Erlacher once stated:
> > Tim Patterson, who wrote the initial version of MS-DOS while at Seattle
> > Products, may have had access to CP/M sources since Seattle Products sol
d
> > CP/M systems and they were working on an 8086 based computer in the late
> > 70s. Tim probably modeled his QDOS (Quick-n-Dirty Operating System) clo
sely
> > after CP/M (some say he may have mechanically translated CP/M since
> > copyright statements to Digital Research have allegedly been found in MS
-DOS
> > 1.x but I haven't seen any). Why not? It would have been a quick and e
asy
> > way to get an OS for the 8086 system up and running.
>
> I've heard that, too. Does that mean that anyone who writes a program to
do
> what he's seen another program do is making a copy?
>>> Ask the lawyers or philosophers.
I have a copy of DOS 1.1 that I've done a Sourcer disassembly of. I have
not found anything referring to DR or CP/M anywhere in the resulting source.
Now, one thought that I had is that there may be a sequence of code
bytes unique to CP/M that was duplicated in DOS (nee, QDOS) by
virtue of directly copying the CP/M source. This would produce a
unique and identifyable signature.
Since I only have v1.1 to examine and it doesn't have a DR notice,
maybe that's why there's a v1.1 :-).
If anyone has a copy of 1.0 that they can send me to work on, I'll
do a book report for y'all...
Rich
[ Rich Cini
[ ClubWin!/CW1
[ MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking
[ Collector of "classic" computers
[ http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/
<================ reply separator =================>
Digging up some literature on the web about the uVAX II console cable
I've ran into some conflicting info:
Story I
| The MicroVAXII serial console port is:
|
| 9 pin D with pinout
| 1 - grnd
| 2,3 - snd, rcv (crossed to terminal for partial null modem)
| 8 to 9 - shorted together
| (I think, I don't have a manual handy. If I'm wrong would someone please
| correct me.)
Story II
|The pinout is a bit strange:
|DE-9 (DEC) DB-25 (PC)
|1 1
|2 3
|3 2
|4 5
|5 6
|6 20
|7 7
|8 -\
|9 -/ (short 8 & 9) together
I have made the latter cable but adapted it to a 9 pin PC-serial
connector and I am pretty certain it is wired ok.
Running Telemate as a terminal program i cannot set Hardware
flowcontrol on cause it tells me that CTS=off (baud = 4800)
I get no characters on the terminal when I startup uVAX (BA123).
It sounds like the HD's restore OK and the little display at
the bulkhead says C after first showing a few other characters.
Pressing the restart/run button seems to have some effect because
I can see a few leds on the TQK50 blink for an instance (The box
is open but the cabinet-open switch is taped into the on position)
What's is wrong ?
Does anyone have a clue
>DOS and Windoze (aka kluge of the month club). CP/M I seem to remember
only
>got to 2.2. MS-DOS got to 6.22, and gosh knows how many kluges there will
the CPM line I remember is:
Dates are appoximate.
1.3 1976
1.4 1977
2.0 (2.2 released) 1980
MPM 1981
3.0 (aka cpm+) 1982
CPnet 1983
Allison
Hi,
I'm just back from InternetWorld, where I had a funny iOpener
experience...
They had a unit embedded in the front face of a refrigerator
(touch-screen) at their display booth. At the end of the spokesmodel's
little presentation (and I emphasize the word model - what all those
beautiful women have to do with computers is beyond me), I couldn't resist
tossing out, "Yeah, that's cool, but can you hack it to run Linux?" I must
have been the 10,000th person to ask that day because she just snapped and
started yelling at me, "will you people leave us alone about this! Jesus!"
But it was too late...some other guy yelled, "yeah, but hurry and buy one
before they pour epoxy in the back of it..."
Cheers,
Aaron
>Since MUCH fewer than 1% of the people who use MS products are engagedin
>activity which would make them aware of the differences and similarities
>between MS-DOS and CP/M if they knew both OS' I'd have to say the internals
>are really never going to be part of a legal argument. Most judges, after
>all, don't write their own programs.
Be aware that the judge did decide and MS was in trouble.
In reality similar and copied were the issues then. User interfaces are
less protected.
I live in both worlds, both user and systems designer/programmer. So I have
an
appreciation of both sets of issues. To me MS makes both sides of the coin
harder
as it's hard to program defensively from an OS that eats itself while
calling itself protected.
Though I am finding NT4 a vast improvement.
Allison
>class) machines; hind sight and all that. And I'm not even saying it was
>wrong for Tim Patterson to model the OS calls after CP/M. After all,
that's
>what he knew.
Ahem, pattern after? it was wholesale copy of CPM1.3 lofted to 8086
after which the ALLOC code was replaced with FAT. (saved buffer space in
ram)
> I would say that the roots of MS-DOS 1.x are entirely in CP/M, while with
>2.x the influence of other operating systems (notably Unix) start to show
This is very true. Mostly because of the copying that was done. DOS 2.0
had to
have similar functionality and yet be different plus CPM and DOS 1.0 lacked
some needed features seen in VMS, UNIX, and others.
>up. Then again, CP/M wasn't created wholecloth either, it had roots from
>RT-11 (I think that's the OS), which Gary Kildall had experience with.
True but the user appearance is only similar, the internal differences
are significant. (Actually it was TOPS10 and OS/8) but they differ even
more.
>> I've heard that, too. Does that mean that anyone who writes a program to
do
>> what he's seen another program do is making a copy?
>
> Ask the lawyers or philosophers.
>
>> You're not even sure he
>> actually saw and read the source code. How many programmers do you know
>> who'd simply copy someone else's work in a case like this? Everybody
wants
>> to leave his own mark.
By then most everyone had disassembled CPM and it was a trivial task as it
was
only 3.5k of 8080 code! Legit copies were even available to some people.
Also there were clones of CPM (P2dos for example) and Turbodos.
Allison
>DEC lives in my heart forever. I bleed DEC Vax blue and PDP11
>Magenta (sorry LCG guys... no China Red).
Same here... I've been to the mill a few times since DEC sold it...
I never go there without my original DEC badge...
Megan Gentry
Former RT-11 Developer
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com |
| Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg!world.std.com |
| Compaq Computer Corporation | addresses need '@' in place of '!' |
| 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ |
| Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler |
| (603) 884 1055 | required." - mbg |
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
On April 7, Huw Davies wrote:
> > I heard that DEC is making PCs and laptops these days that come bundled
> > with Windows.
>
> Unless I'm sadly mistaken, DEC no longer exists.
So they got bought. I can still pick up the phone and order a VAX
or an Alpha...and get a damn good machine. As long as I can do
that, DEC exists.
-Dave McGuire
>Try running Wordperfects Drawperfect 2.0 even today unde DOS 7.0 without
>adequate FCBS (min: FCBS=2,0 in config.sys) and it won't work.
>
>FCBS are still among us, like the rudimentary footbones in a whale.
Big time. I run Champion/dos at work (financial package) under W95 and
it don't run unless FCBS=80 (minimum!). I won't say more about Paradox/dos.
Allison
>SCP and Micros~1 had had prior dealings, including sharing computer faire
>booths, etc. In the course of those encounters, Patterson had seen the
>F.A.T. structure used in the stand-alone BASIC that Micros~1 peddled to
Fat was used in the Z80 basics from MS. Systems of not that had it were
TANDY,
NCR, NEC and a few others of the z80/cpm world.
Side tidbit...
8086/88 part was available around 1978 (late) and systems using it were
around in
1979. S100 and other systems were starting to build on it by late 1979 and
DRI was
late with CPM86. Hence the 8085/8088 boards for S100 and the other machine
like
rainbow that had z80/8088. There was at least on OS that ran on 8086/8
before DOS
and that was a IRMX and I think ISIS-II as well.
Allison
