30 Jan
2008
30 Jan
'08
5:45 a.m.
CPM had a bios section that loaded on boot. A bios was built for each and every
configuration.
There was no compatibility mod persay. Several vendors had fancy bios configurators that
"Built" a bios
from boiler plate based on desired hardware
configuration and linked it up for the faint of heart.
But as for a universally
compatible bios that was what ms/pcdos introduced to the masses.
The other Bob
On Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:33:47 -0500, Joshua Alexander Dersch wrote:
scheefj at netscape.net writes:
> In the early-mid 80's a program was "well
behaved" if it did it's I/O thru
> DOS calls. Those programs would run on just about anything.
Were there similar problems in the CP/M world? That
is, was it commonplace
for there to be CP/M programs that bypassed CP/M BDOS calls and wrote
directly to a specific machine's hardware? Seems like CP/M developers were
more disciplined in this fashion, but maybe it's just because in the CP/M
arena there were so many different pieces of hardware it was the only way to
do it? (Whereas with IBM, the PC was seen as more of a reference standard,
even if it wasn't really that way in the beginning?)
I'd be interested to hear opinions from people who
were there at the time,
since it was a little before my time.
Josh