13 Dec
2011
13 Dec
'11
5:19 p.m.
On 13 Dec 2011 at 15:01, Eric Smith wrote:
I don't think that's the case, at least in
terms of when they were
written. As I understand it, Kildall tried to sell CP/M to Intel, and
Intel didn't buy it, apparently because Kildall didn't want to sell
them exclusive rights. That resulted in the creation of ISIS as an
Intel exclusive.
It would be interesting to find a definitive timeline. The first
CP/M version I ever saw was 1.3, bundled with the IMSAI disk setup.
But I'd already been using ISIS on an MDS by then. It's an
interesting subject. PL/M certainly precedes them both, as Gary
wrote most of ISIS and great swatches of CP/M in it--but it started
life as a cross-compiler.
But Gary's naming conventions, use of colons to denote physical
devices, were certainly DEC, but which particular product is a
thornier issue as DEC (as well as other manufacturers) product lines
borrowed extensively from one another.
Where the DEC conventions came from is another question. Certainly,
the use of asterisk meaning "don't care" or "default" very old.
Which OS was the first to allow for execution of both system and user-
created program files by the simple mention of the program name with
an optional argument list?
--Chuck