24 Aug
2012
24 Aug
'12
8:14 a.m.
David Gesswein wrote:
On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 12:21:57PM -0400, Allison
wrote:
The biggest difference was OS/8 was multi-task/multi-user.
It also existed and was more powerful than CP/M years earlier on
a CPU (PDP-8) that was more primitive.
Not to say I was unhappy or even disappointed just a comparison.
I've used CP/M since its introduction and ported it extensively. I've
gone as far as to mod it internally to suit my needs and make
improvements. It did background processing if you were creative
in the BIOS.
I still use it, I have many machines that run it (more than 20).
It was state of the art then, DOS didn't really improve it much
save for nested directories and some limited background processing.
Nothing was ever available that left more of the 64K usable for
applications and could interface to any mass storage or IO.
I built a simple machine a short while ago using 32MB CF for
storage and two serial ports, 64K ram and 32K of EEprom as
a minimal system that could run on battery. None of the other
Z80 OSs could do that without a lot of redevelopment pain.
Allison
Unlike many when CP/M came about in the mid 70s
I'd experience
with OS/8 and TOPS-10 and wished that CP/M was more.
I haven't used CP/M. What was the significant items that were better
about OS/8 than CP/M? I had thought they were similar in capability (and
even shared some command names).