The fall of CP/M?

I was a member of the Northwest Computer Society, a Seattle computer club, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. (Tim Paterson was also a member but I had little interaction with him.) Seattle Computer Products gave a presentation of their new 8086 based S100 computer at a meeting in 1979 or 1980. At that time the hardware was ready but Digital Research had not provided an 8086 version of CP/M. Microsoft had used a Seattle Computer Products prototype system to test 8086 BASIC and demo the software at tradeshows. Seattle Computer Products needed an Operating System so Paterson wrote QDOS based on his knowledge of CP/M and Microsoft's BASIC file system. He may have also read some of the "CP/M Internals" articles published in the Northwest Computer Society newsletters. Microsoft's 8080/Z80 software was written for CP/M and Paul Allen thought it would be easier to convert the Apple to Z80 than to convert their software to 6502. ( http://books.google.com/books?id=1Um4zkCCo38C&pg=PA37 ) Tim Paterson was hired as a contractor to design Microsoft's Z80 SoftCard for the Apple II. Here is a quote from the book Fire in the Valley page 329. "They brought in Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products, located across Lake Washington, to try to build a card for the Apple that would let it run Microsoft's 8080 and Z80 software. They called it the SoftCard. Paterson did a series of prototypes before Don Burdis took over the project." Michael Holley -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chuck Guzis Sent: Monday, August 27, 2012 10:49 AM To: Alan Perry; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: The fall of CP/M? On 27 Aug 2012 at 10:10, Alan Perry wrote: Haven't we been here before? That IEEE Spectrum article was so much of a bald attempt by some guy to push his analysis software (I can't even figure out the logic in his method), that as an IEEE member, I was ashamed that such stupidity was published in the flagship publication of the Institute. Having "cloned" the CP/M API myself, I'll say that it would be far more work to disassemble the CP/M object code to implement the API that it would be to simply re-implement the API. Paterson was no idiot. Yes, Paterson did copy the CP/M-80 API, but the CP/M-86 interface is completely different. Note that others copied the API before he did; e.g. TurboDOS, TP/M (used on the Epson QX-10) and several others. I think that even in our litigious time, copying an API is not a crime. I'm not a MS-lover, but I do believe in keeping perspective. --Chuck