CP/M 2 - what's its legal status? (Vector box cards) - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

24 Nov 2005

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Subject: CP/M 2 - what's its legal status? (Vector box cards)
   From: M H Stein <dm561 at torfree.net>
   Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 02:21:28 -0500
     To: "'cctalk at classiccmp.org'" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>

Well, from my limited knowledge of Vector systems, AFAIK the
multi-user systems did actually use a standard 48K CP/M and
not MP/M; each terminal loaded it into its own memory card
and the supervisor ROM looked after time-slicing among the cards. 
A lot of the multiuser S100 systems used CPU/memory/IO per user 
running CP/M and a additional CPU/mem/IO/disks running MPM as 
server to provide inter-cpu communication, file services and 
spooled printing.  Some ran Multiple IO subsystems and one cpu
to time slice task swap. 

...
 But the question still remains whether the FDD is soft
or hard
sectored; it does indeed look like a Tandon and not the usual
Micropolis and if the model number can't be relied on, how
could one tell (other than by trial & error)?

mike 
This is the crush question.  Board names/model numbers may help.
Then those specifically familar with Vector can say whats what.

Allison