Bit of CP/M trivia needed - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

27 Aug 2005

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Subject: Bit of CP/M trivia needed
   From: "Brian Knittel" <brian at quarterbyte.com>
   Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 00:58:01 -0700
     To: cctalk at classiccmp.org

Hi all,

Does anybody out there know for certain when the 
term BIOS was coined? I believe it was Gary Kildall,
and from what I can find, it was around 1978 that
he abstracted the I/O and localized it in what
he called the BIOS. Anyone know differently? 
The term BIOS is older, early '77.  It came into use with 
V1.3 I think and for cetertain in V1.4.

...
 Also -- was the BIOS stored on the CP/M 
floppy, or was it in ROM/EPROM? If not, how
did CP/M machines boot? Was there a dedicated
boot ROM that was used just for startup, and
then the BIOS took over? I had one back in
the day, but I sure can't remember this detail. 
The easy answer is yes.  Tranditional CP/M systems the 
CCP/BDOS and BIOS were on the first two reserved tracks 
of the floppy (8" SSSD) and those were loaded by a boot 
rom.

Other implmentations from V2 on it was easily to store 
the BIOS in ROM and use that to boot the system.

...
 This is for a writing project, so I'd like
to get it right, 

Thanks!
Brian 
Thre is much myth, and misinformation of old cpm. Much of
it was from people that had never used or never been there
(in time) and their sense of reference is the PC rather 
than what came before.

Allison