13 Jan
2014
13 Jan
'14
11:35 p.m.
On 13 January 2014 22:11, Ray Arachelian <ray at arachelian.com> wrote:
From what I recall the story of the C128 went
something like they needed
something to control the MMU before the 6510 startup (or something like
that - wetware RAM is sucky) and the Z80 from a TS/1000 was available,
so was hacked in. CP/M was just a positive side effect. IMO, had they
gone with an 8086 and DOS compatibility, they would have done much, much
better as PCs were starting to take over by that time.
Now that you mention it, ISTR something along those lines myself.
There was a great article by Bil Herd about building the C128 on
Hackaday recently:
http://hackaday.com/2013/12/09/guest-post-the-real-story-of-hacking-togethe…
AFAICS it doesn't mention this function of the Z80, though.
Bil happily and confidently claims that it was:
"the last mass production 8 bit computer and first home computer with
40 and 80 column displays, dual processors, three operating systems,
128k memory via MMU and one heck of a door stop."
It wasn't the 1st 8-bit to break the 64kB barrier (Memotech? BBC with
sideways RAM?) and that it was the last 8-bit micro (it wasn't - as
the 1st commenter points out, the SAM Coup? came considerably later).
But still, a remarkable machine.
--
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