21 Dec
2001
21 Dec
'01
7:43 p.m.
I whole hartedly agree !
It's the systemsoftware and the application combined with
a large userbase that determines succes. In the late '80 the
Apple II(x) was nice but CP/M enabled more manufactorers
with rather different hardware to tap the same potential
user/clientbase. Even a (microsoft) Z80 card was made for
the Apple II(x) platform while it already had a good CPU ?????
Very much the same happened almost a decade (I'm talking
about the breaktrough period here) later with the IBM-PC
and its clones . And in that case designquality again
was not the issue.
----- Original Message -----
From: ajp166 <ajp166(a)bellatlantic.net>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, December 22, 2001 3:40 AM
Subject: Re: 6502/Z80 speed comparison (was MITS 2SIO serial chip?)
From: Richard Erlacher <edick(a)idcomm.com>
without modification, in most cases, on a Z80,.by
the time the 6502
became
popular. Now, I've always believed the 6502
at 1 MHz to compare
favorably with
the 4 MHz Z80, but I used the Z80 running CP/M 2.2
to do useful work,
since it
was a lot more trouble squeezing useful work out
of a 6502 back in
'78-'79.
If anything I'd say CP/M was a factor more than any virtue of Z80. I say
that as
most "z80" code underused the Z80 as a fancy 8080. One may wonder if a
cp/m like (or better!) OS existed for 6502 such that it was portable or
easily
ported if things may have developed differently.
Allison