25 Mar
2014
25 Mar
'14
12:07 p.m.
25 Mar
25 Mar
12:40 p.m.
On Mar 25, 2014, at 3:07 PM, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote:
That's pretty neat! I'd love to see them release source to Word
5.1 for the Mac, which I still consider the high-water mark for
WYSIWYG word processors.
- Dave
12:53 p.m.
On 3/25/14 12:40 PM, David Riley wrote:
On Mar 25, 2014, at 3:07 PM, Al Kossow <aek at
bitsavers.org> wrote:
That's pretty neat! I'd love to see them release source to Word
5.1 for the Mac, which I still consider the high-water mark for
WYSIWYG word processors.
I'll add it to the wish list.
Hopefully we'll be able to get some of the earlier software released, in particular
Microsoft BASIC
and the other products for the 8080/Z80
1:25 p.m.
On Tue, 25 Mar 2014, Al Kossow wrote:
On 3/25/14 12:40 PM, David Riley wrote:
It would be exceptionally cool to get the sources for M80/L80,
particularly the Apple CP/M "ALDS" version of M80 that spoke 6502
opcodes.
Also, the official sources for the various Softcards would be a bonus.
Steve
--
On Mar 25, 2014, at 3:07 PM, Al Kossow <aek at
bitsavers.org> wrote:
That's pretty neat! I'd love to see them release source to Word
5.1 for the Mac, which I still consider the high-water mark for
WYSIWYG word processors.
I'll add it to the wish list.
Hopefully we'll be able to get some of the earlier software released, in
particular Microsoft BASIC
and the other products for the 8080/Z80 
2:39 p.m.
On Tue, 25 Mar 2014, Al Kossow wrote:
On 3/25/14 12:40 PM, David Riley wrote:
That would be wonderful Al!
Weren't their BASIC interpreters written in some cpu-agnostic code that
then got tossed into another tool that output the code for the target cpu?
(I wish I could recall where I heard that...)
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!
On Mar 25, 2014, at 3:07 PM, Al Kossow <aek at
bitsavers.org> wrote:
That's pretty neat! I'd love to see them release source to Word
5.1 for the Mac, which I still consider the high-water mark for
WYSIWYG word processors.
I'll add it to the wish list.
Hopefully we'll be able to get some of the earlier software released, in
particular Microsoft BASIC
and the other products for the 8080/Z80 
2:48 p.m.
I think that's right. They cross compiled using a pdp11, I believe, using
p-code as an intermediary.
On Mar 25, 2014 4:45 PM, "geneb" <geneb at deltasoft.com> wrote:
On Tue, 25 Mar 2014, Al Kossow wrote:
On 3/25/14 12:40 PM, David Riley wrote:
That would be wonderful Al!
Weren't their BASIC interpreters written in some cpu-agnostic code that
then got tossed into another tool that output the code for the target cpu?
(I wish I could recall where I heard that...)
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!
On Mar 25, 2014, at 3:07 PM, Al Kossow <aek at
bitsavers.org> wrote:
FYI
I'll add it to the wish list.
Hopefully we'll be able to get some of the earlier software released, in
particular Microsoft BASIC
and the other products for the 8080/Z80
http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2014/
03/25/microsoft-makes-source-code-for-ms-dos-and-word-for-
windows-available-to-public.aspx
That's pretty neat! I'd love to see them release source to Word
5.1 for the Mac, which I still consider the high-water mark for
WYSIWYG word processors.
4:27 p.m.
On Mar 25, 2014 4:45 PM, "geneb" <geneb at deltasoft.com> wrote:
Weren't their BASIC interpreters written in some
cpu-agnostic code that
then got tossed into another tool that output the code for the target cpu?
On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 3:48 PM, A. P. Garcia <a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com>wrote:
I think that's right. They cross compiled using a
pdp11, I believe, using
p-code as an intermediary.
They used an intermediate code like that for Word, but not for BASIC. At
least some versions of Word were reported to be a mix of native code and
intermediate code. I think the native code was generated directly from
source rather than through an intermediate code step.
Microsoft BASIC interpreters were written in native assembly. In the early
days 8080 and 6502 BASIC interpreters were assembled on a DECsystem-10
using macro packages for MACRO-10.
I haven't heard of Microsoft ever using a PDP-11 for development of their
mainstream software. Perhaps they may have used it for Xenix development.
5:06 p.m.
On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 6:27 PM, Eric Smith <spacewar at gmail.com> wrote:
On Mar 25, 2014 4:45 PM, "geneb" <geneb
at deltasoft.com> wrote:
sorry, my memory is a bit fuzzy. in the forward to Writing Solid Code
by Steve Maguire, David Moore talks about developing Microsoft
Multiplan:
"The system we used to develop Multiplan was pretty sophisticated for
PC development in those days. We wrote the core product in C -- most
programs then were written in assembly or Pascal. We did our editing
and compilation on a PDP-11 running Unix. The C code was compiled into
p-code and downloaded to the target machines. We had to build p-code
interpreters for each microprocessor in use at that time."
Weren't their BASIC interpreters written in
some cpu-agnostic code that
then got tossed into another tool that output the code for the target cpu?
On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 3:48 PM, A. P. Garcia <a.phillip.garcia at
gmail.com>wrote:
I think that's right. They cross compiled
using a pdp11, I believe, using
p-code as an intermediary.
They used an intermediate code like that for Word, but not for BASIC. At
least some versions of Word were reported to be a mix of native code and
intermediate code. I think the native code was generated directly from
source rather than through an intermediate code step.
Microsoft BASIC interpreters were written in native assembly. In the early
days 8080 and 6502 BASIC interpreters were assembled on a DECsystem-10
using macro packages for MACRO-10.
I haven't heard of Microsoft ever using a PDP-11 for development of their
mainstream software. Perhaps they may have used it for Xenix development.
5:55 p.m.
On 3/25/14 5:06 PM, A. P. Garcia wrote:
"The system we used to develop Multiplan was
pretty sophisticated for
PC development in those days. We wrote the core product in C -- most
programs then were written in assembly or Pascal. We did our editing
and compilation on a PDP-11 running Unix. The C code was compiled into
p-code and downloaded to the target machines. We had to build p-code
interpreters for each microprocessor in use at that time."
I haven't put it up yet, but I have the proceedings for an early Xenix
developers conference where they talk about the PDP-11s running Xenix
that they use internally, and the bright future for the product.
Then OS/2 happened.
Multiplan and the original Word were two products that were p-code based.
My original request was for that version of Word. I was quite surprised
when what they released was the Windows product.
7 p.m.
On 03/25/2014 08:55 PM, Al Kossow wrote:
On 3/25/14 5:06 PM, A. P. Garcia wrote:
Yes, this is seriously cool. I downloaded the MSDOS file and it has two
files
in the DOS2 directory with Xenix in the name. Xenix and Xenix2.asm not
sure exactly what they are.
TITLE XENIX - IO system to mimic UNIX
NAME XENIX
Xenix to dos file transfer?
Xenix ran on PDP-11 and PRO3xx as well as PCs.
"The system we used to develop Multiplan was
pretty sophisticated for
PC development in those days. We wrote the core product in C -- most
programs then were written in assembly or Pascal. We did our editing
and compilation on a PDP-11 running Unix. The C code was compiled into
p-code and downloaded to the target machines. We had to build p-code
interpreters for each microprocessor in use at that time."
I haven't put it up yet, but I have the proceedings for an early Xenix
developers conference where they talk about the PDP-11s running Xenix
that they use internally, and the bright future for the product.
Then OS/2 happened.
Multiplan and the original Word were two products that were p-code based.
My original request was for that version of Word. I was quite surprised
when what they released was the Windows product.
That explains a lot.
Allison
7:17 p.m.
On Tue, 25 Mar 2014, allison wrote:
TITLE XENIX - IO system to mimic UNIX
NAME XENIX
Xenix to dos file transfer?
Xenix ran on PDP-11 and PRO3xx as well as PCs.
Wouldn't that have been nice?
No, sorry, just some routines to make the user interface/subdirectory
structures of MS-DOS more closely resemble UNIX for people who wanted Unix
instead of DOS
MS-DOS 2 was intended to "resemble" Unix.
For example, Microsoft said that they had been planning to use '/' for
directory path separator and '-' for command-line switch punctuation, but
at the last minute, IBM decided to go with '\' and '/' instead.
8:46 p.m.
On 03/25/2014 07:17 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
On Tue, 25 Mar 2014, allison wrote:
I still have the "README" notes (printed copy, fading rapidly) to OEMs
announcing MSDOS 2.0. Back in those days, all OEMs still weren't aping
IBM, so an OEM was reasonably expected to provide his own I/O routines
and merge them into DOS.
One of the things stated is indeed that the eventual goal of MSDOS was
to imitate Xenix. If you're desperate or curious, I can transcribe the
notes--from my tractor-feed paper copy.
--Chuck
TITLE XENIX - IO system to mimic UNIX
NAME XENIX
Xenix to dos file transfer?
Xenix ran on PDP-11 and PRO3xx as well as PCs.
Wouldn't that have been nice?
No, sorry, just some routines to make the user interface/subdirectory
structures of MS-DOS more closely resemble UNIX for people who wanted Unix
instead of DOS
MS-DOS 2 was intended to "resemble" Unix.
For example, Microsoft said that they had been planning to use '/' for
directory path separator and '-' for command-line switch punctuation, but
at the last minute, IBM decided to go with '\' and '/' instead.
9:25 p.m.
On Tue, 25 Mar 2014, Chuck Guzis wrote:
I still have the "README" notes (printed
copy, fading rapidly) to OEMs
announcing MSDOS 2.0. Back in those days, all OEMs still weren't aping
IBM, so an OEM was reasonably expected to provide his own I/O routines
and merge them into DOS.
One of the things stated is indeed that the eventual goal of MSDOS was
to imitate Xenix. If you're desperate or curious, I can transcribe the
notes--from my tractor-feed paper copy.
When it's convenient, howzbout comparing it with the README.TXT (by Chris
Larson), and other text files in this .ZIP
This was compiled later, rather than being the original notes from the
release of 2.00, as is obvious from a few of the supplemental program
files being from 2.11 instead of 2.00
30 Mar
30 Mar
12:36 a.m.
I too would like to see the source-code for early Macintosh
applications like Word; Microsoft's early use of a "P-code"
intermediary was known at the time but as could be expected no details
were available. In the early 1980s we were solidly entrenched with the
UCSD p-System and we were a little surprised that Microsoft used
p-code since Apple made strong representations about their use of
Lisa-based cross-compilers and native-code generation for Macintosh.
These days we get snippets like this:
http://www.memecentral.com/mylife.htm
But Charles's mission was to compete against the surprisingly
successful VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program. He was to develop
Microsoft's spreadsheet, a project code-named "EP" (for "Electronic
Paper") and later marketed as Microsoft Multiplan. That task he
entrusted to Doug Klunder, programmer extraordinaire, who would go on
to lead the development of the unmatched Excel after Multiplan's
lukewarm market reception in the face of Lotus 1-2-3.
I had a slightly different mission. I was to write the so-called
"p-code C compiler" that was crucial to Charles's business strategy.
His strategy came to be known as the Revenue Bomb.
Here's how the Revenue Bomb worked. You would list all the different
business products that Microsoft would develop on the horizontal axis.
On the vertical axis, you would list all the different personal
computers that were coming out from the dozens of hardware
manufacturers. The p-code C compiler, which I named "CS" and which was
used for more than ten years to develop Microsoft application
software, would allow us to create separate versions of each product
very easily for each of the different machines.
What we didn't realize -- nor did most people in those days -- was
that there wouldn't be dozens of different PC architectures competing
for the market. There would soon be only two: IBM's and Apple's
Macintosh. But CS gave Microsoft the upper hand for many years in
developing Mac and IBM applications hand-in-hand.
I spent my first summer at Microsoft writing CS, then returned the
next summer to work on a secret new project. It was to be a modest
word-processor to serve as an inexpensive entree to the business
software market. By getting people used to our user interface, they
would then be able to easily learn Multiplan and our future business
products: Chart and File among them. By October of 1983, when Word
Shipped, we had more than 30 programmers and one marketing guy in the
now-getting-serious Applications Division. The problem was, Multiplan
was already done and its user interface was already out there. I had
to be compatible with it. My mission: write the world's first
wordprocessor with a spreadsheet user-interface.
8:39 a.m.
I enjoyed this anecdote and found it quite informative. Thank you for
sharing.
On Mar 30, 2014 2:41 AM, "Nigel Williams" <nigel.d.williams at gmail.com>
wrote:
I too would like to see the source-code for early
Macintosh
applications like Word; Microsoft's early use of a "P-code"
intermediary was known at the time but as could be expected no details
were available. In the early 1980s we were solidly entrenched with the
UCSD p-System and we were a little surprised that Microsoft used
p-code since Apple made strong representations about their use of
Lisa-based cross-compilers and native-code generation for Macintosh.
These days we get snippets like this:
http://www.memecentral.com/mylife.htm
But Charles's mission was to compete against the surprisingly
successful VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program. He was to develop
Microsoft's spreadsheet, a project code-named "EP" (for "Electronic
Paper") and later marketed as Microsoft Multiplan. That task he
entrusted to Doug Klunder, programmer extraordinaire, who would go on
to lead the development of the unmatched Excel after Multiplan's
lukewarm market reception in the face of Lotus 1-2-3.
I had a slightly different mission. I was to write the so-called
"p-code C compiler" that was crucial to Charles's business strategy.
His strategy came to be known as the Revenue Bomb.
Here's how the Revenue Bomb worked. You would list all the different
business products that Microsoft would develop on the horizontal axis.
On the vertical axis, you would list all the different personal
computers that were coming out from the dozens of hardware
manufacturers. The p-code C compiler, which I named "CS" and which was
used for more than ten years to develop Microsoft application
software, would allow us to create separate versions of each product
very easily for each of the different machines.
What we didn't realize -- nor did most people in those days -- was
that there wouldn't be dozens of different PC architectures competing
for the market. There would soon be only two: IBM's and Apple's
Macintosh. But CS gave Microsoft the upper hand for many years in
developing Mac and IBM applications hand-in-hand.
I spent my first summer at Microsoft writing CS, then returned the
next summer to work on a secret new project. It was to be a modest
word-processor to serve as an inexpensive entree to the business
software market. By getting people used to our user interface, they
would then be able to easily learn Multiplan and our future business
products: Chart and File among them. By October of 1983, when Word
Shipped, we had more than 30 programmers and one marketing guy in the
now-getting-serious Applications Division. The problem was, Multiplan
was already done and its user interface was already out there. I had
to be compatible with it. My mission: write the world's first
wordprocessor with a spreadsheet user-interface.
31 Mar
31 Mar
7:11 a.m.
On 30 March 2014 16:39, A. P. Garcia <a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com> wrote:
I enjoyed this anecdote and found it quite
informative. Thank you for
sharing.
What he said!
--
Liam Proven * Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk * GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com * Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 * Cell: +44 7939-087884
29 Mar
29 Mar
11:42 p.m.
I worked at a company in 1981 that had the source for MS BASIC, It
was written in 8080 asm and didn't have any fancy cross compilation
tricks, Maybe later though.
I would have kept a copy, but we used custom ( hard sector hole punch)
8" floppies to store our work.
On 3/25/14, geneb <geneb at deltasoft.com> wrote:
On Tue, 25 Mar 2014, Al Kossow wrote:
On 3/25/14 12:40 PM, David Riley wrote:
That would be wonderful Al!
Weren't their BASIC interpreters written in some cpu-agnostic code that
then got tossed into another tool that output the code for the target cpu?
(I wish I could recall where I heard that...)
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!
On Mar 25, 2014, at 3:07 PM, Al Kossow <aek at
bitsavers.org> wrote:
That's pretty neat! I'd love to see them release source to Word
5.1 for the Mac, which I still consider the high-water mark for
WYSIWYG word processors.
I'll add it to the wish list.
Hopefully we'll be able to get some of the earlier software released, in
particular Microsoft BASIC
and the other products for the 8080/Z80 
25 Mar
25 Mar
2:49 p.m.
This is really phenomenal, and let's hope it continues. IMO the original MS
Basic is a form of creative expression no less significant than, say,
Edison's first light bulb. Seriously. MS Basic (and DOS) launched Microsoft
and all that follows. It's amazing how much of the software history of the
past 30 years has been lost to ... who knows where. Kudos to those working
to find and preserve these important artifacts of the microprocessor
revolution before they're lost forever!
- glenn
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Al Kossow
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2014 3:53 PM
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: MSDOS and Word source releases
On 3/25/14 12:40 PM, David Riley wrote:
On Mar 25, 2014, at 3:07 PM, Al Kossow <aek at
bitsavers.org> wrote:
I'll add it to the wish list.
Hopefully we'll be able to get some of the earlier software released, in
particular Microsoft BASIC and the other products for the 8080/Z80
FYI
http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2014/03/25/microsof
t-makes-source-code-for-ms-dos-and-word-for-windows-available-to-publ
ic.aspx
That's pretty neat! I'd love to see them release source to Word
5.1 for the Mac, which I still consider the high-water mark for
WYSIWYG word processors.
2:31 p.m.
On Tue, 25 Mar 2014, Al Kossow wrote:
*falls out of chair*
I wonder if they can be nudged to release 3.30. :D
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!
4:02 p.m.
On Tue, 25 Mar 2014, geneb wrote:
*falls out of chair*
I wonder if they can be nudged to release 3.30. :D
It may be a little while.
And this is a GREAT start! Thanks to all who arranged it!
BTW, some of the files are NOT from version 2.00.
There are a few files, for some of the programs such as FORMAT and CHKDSK,
that are checking for version 2.11 (02OBH).
In SYS.ASM, and a few others, it is looking for 1.54 <= Version <= 2.11
But, for anything in that range of versions, we finally get to go back
through our TSR and such code, to see which parts of the disassemblies we
got right/wrong!
And, such things as whether the comments ever mention what "MZ" was
intended to represent as the marker for an .EXE file
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
http://www.xenosoft.com/FPUIB
5:37 p.m.
Parts of Windows 2000 as well.
Rich
--
Rich Cini
Collector of Classic Computers
Build Master and lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator
http://www.classiccmp.org/cini
http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32
On 3/25/14, 8:09 PM, "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 03/25/2014 04:02 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
It may be a little while.
And this is a GREAT start! Thanks to all who arranged it!
The source for MSDOS 6.0 has been floating around for at least a couple
of years. Not hard to find.
--Chuck
7:17 p.m.
On Tue, 25 Mar 2014, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 03/25/2014 04:02 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
It includes the QBASIC sources too...
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!
It may be a little while.
And this is a GREAT start! Thanks to all who arranged it!
The source for MSDOS 6.0 has been floating around for at least a couple of
years. Not hard to find.
3689
days inactive
3695
days old
24 comments
15 participants
participants (15)
-
a.phillip.garcia＠gmail.com -
aek＠bitsavers.org -
ajp166＠verizon.net -
alexandre.tabajara＠gmail.com -
cclist＠sydex.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
fraveydank＠gmail.com -
geneb＠deltasoft.com -
glenn.f.roberts＠gmail.com -
jimmydevice＠gmail.com -
lproven＠gmail.com -
nigel.d.williams＠gmail.com -
rich.cini＠verizon.net -
snhirsch＠gmail.com -
spacewar＠gmail.com