7 Apr
2000
7 Apr
'00
3:48 p.m.
Microsoft also was involved in the (in)famous MSX standard and they
developed MSX-DOS for it. It had the MS-DOS commands but was enough
compatible to run the ZCP3 CP/M extension on it.
Lots of programscreens looked weird because of the different way the console
screen was handled but it worked.
Even now MS-DOS still has the old FCBS. These are the File Control Block
structure that
CP/M uses to keep files open. Some old Turbo Pascal 3.0 software still uses
it.
MS-DOS 3.0 mostly did away with that and intruduced filehandles.
But even in MS-DOS 4.0 the FCBS structures were still used in conjunction
with the SHARE.EXE utility to allow harddisks larger than 32MB
remember this one ?
"SHARE.EXE should be installed for large media"
Beware if you did not follow this advise with a +32MB drive.
----- Original Message -----
From: Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner <spc(a)armigeron.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 9:13 PM
Subject: Re: !Re: Nuke Redmond!
are
Windows.
It was thus said that the Great Richard Erlacher once
stated:
>
> > MS DOS:
> > They bought a clone of CP/M
> >
> I used CP/M every day for about six years. When I saw my first MS-DOS,
I
> noted that the console command for a file list
was 'DIR' and 'TYPE' and
> that's where the similarity ended. The file system architecture and
> associated function set was totally different from CP/M's, and the
console
> commands were different. What they had in common
beyond 'DIR' was that
they
> responded to keyboard commands just like ALL
other OS'. CP/M used PIP
> rather than Copy. Are you now going to say they swiped that from OS-8?
I
> just can't convince my self that there's
much in common between MSDOS
and
CP/M.
The similarities of MS-DOS to CP/M are mostly internal. In looking over
the list of OS functions between the two, the first 36 functions of each the same, with a few notable exceptions where the
concept don't match
(MS-DOS for example does not have an IOBYTE).
There are also two ways to call MS-DOS functions, one through the
documented interrupt call (INT 21h), the other a call to location 0005h
(that is, for a COM program consisting of a single segment, calling
location
0005h in the current segment has the same effect of
calling INT 21h---for
an
EXE program you may not be able to do it since the PSP
(the segment the
call
lives in) is in a different segment than the rest of
the program
typically)), which is how you call BDOS in CP/M.
You can also terminate a program by calling location 0000h (again, in a
COM program). In CP/M this causes a warm reset (similar functionality).
The register usage is different, but that's only to be expected because
of
differences between the 8080 and 8086, but 8080 code
could be mechanically
translated to 8086 since there was a one-to-one relationship between
registers. It wouldn't produce optimal code, but it would produce code
that
would more or less work and these register mappings
map pretty well
between
the CP/M and MS-DOS calls.
Tim Patterson, who wrote the initial version of MS-DOS while at Seattle
Products, may have had access to CP/M sources since Seattle Products sold
CP/M systems and they were working on an 8086 based computer in the late
70s. Tim probably modeled his QDOS (Quick-n-Dirty Operating System)
closely
after CP/M (some say he may have mechanically
translated CP/M since
copyright statements to Digital Research have allegedly been found in
MS-DOS
1.x but I haven't seen any). Why not? It would
have been a quick and
easy
way to get an OS for the 8086 system up and running.
Microsoft's coming along and obtaining QDOS for $50,000 isn't that
straightforward but that's a story for another time.
> > MS Visual BASIC:
> > Now this one has bothered me for several years, did they buy the
underlying
> > technology or copy something that already
existed. I've a strange
feeling
> that this
one was actual innovation!
Apple was working on a version of BASIC for the Macintosh that would
resemble VB today in the late 80s/early 90s. Microsoft got wind of it and
threatened to cut their license to Microsoft BASIC for the APPLE II (still
amoney maker at the time) if Apple actually released the product. Apple
towed the line and what do you know---Microsoft produces this very
innovative product called Visual Basic shortly thereafter, but for
To my knowledge, the Apple ``Visual Basic'' never saw the light of day.
-spc (All on topic, stuff happened more than 10 years ago)