15 Mar
2006
15 Mar
'06
5:42 p.m.
On 3/15/2006 at 8:41 AM Barry Watzman wrote:
Now that was the standard Digital Research SYSGEN. If
you are dealing
with
an OEM system or any system that used any flavor of
5.25" media, then all
bets are off. In such systems the entire methodology for system
generation,
booting and copying the boot code were entirely up to the OEM and could be
extremely different from the DR standard (which was both simplistic and
quite restrictive).
I can't recall if the OEM kit gave much direction on the matter of sysgen,
athough I do recall it was one of the files affected by the
serial-numbering process. I'll have to check my notes and find out if DRI
gave out the source to Sysgen or even included instructions for extending
it.
I've always wondered how many duplicate serial numbers one would find if
one took a census of the CP/M 2.2 systems now running. Few even know that
OEMs were required by contract to serial-number their copies of CP/M.
Cheers,
Chuck