Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

[Tony Duell]

On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 7:24 PM Liam Proven via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:


> We had simple cheap low-spec computers because American high-end
> computers were impossibly expensive.

There were also some pretty high-spec British microcomputers, but they
tended to flop owing to the price. Things like the HH Tiger (did it
ever go into production? Prototypes certainly exist).

> I guess I am realising that CP/M was a much bigger deal there than here.

My experience at the time was that CP/M was not a 'big thing' in
Britain. And S100 was even less. Yes there were S100 computers here
(there were some British-produced ones like the CASU Super C which
used bought-in CPU and RAM cards and CASU I/O cards) but I don't
really remember them at the time.

Although it is worth remembering that before the BBC micro, schools
sometimes had Research Machines computers (there were some at the
school I went to). The RML380Z did use CP/M. But I suspect that the
BBC micro ended up in many more schools that the RMLs did.

> Amstrad didn't learn from this -- after 3 million-selling PCW models,
> the 2 successor models couldn't run CP/M and both flopped.
>

Which were those? I thought all the Amstrad disk-based CPCs and PCWs
could run CP/M

-tony