CP/M and Imsai - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

2 Apr 2002

From: Don Caprio &lt;caprio(a)dcms.com&gt;
...
 I purchased an Imsai 8080 and would like to run some
version of CP/M.
Should I stick with Imsai's IMDOS, which we know works? If CP/M is doable
What version would be the best choice? 
Cpm is doable on ANY 8080/8085/z80/z180/z280 machine with the
minimum of:

    20k of ram {16k for V1.4}
    Console IO device {serial, parallel or video}
    Some form of block addressable mass storage device
           {disk, tape or rom/ramdisk}

Nice to have:

    Boot prom/eprom (doesnt have to be big)
    Second port for printer
    hard disk

...
 Does CP/M need some sort of BIOS like the PC? If so
where do I get the BIOS
source in order to burn an EPROM? 
CP/M does (invented) the idea of a bios but.... it is not resident firmware
as in PCs.  It's loaded at boot time from mass storage.  A BIOS for the DISK
CONTROLLER and CONSOLE IO may or may not exist depending on YOUR
specific configuration.  S100 system could vary a lot and were not anything
close to plug and play.  However, you could write your own bios and there
are plenty of examples out there as well as the docs needed.

Allison