High performance coprocessor boards of the 80s and 90s - was Re: SGI ONYX

[Liam Proven]

On 20 April 2016 at 17:32, Pete Turnbull <pete at dunnington.plus.com> wrote:
> The Z80 CoPro ran CP/M - real licensed CP/M 2.2, not the bastardised
> often-not-compatible "CPN" lookalike offered by Torch, and came with GEM and
> various office software.

Hang on. I think you're conflating 2 different coprocessors and their
software here.

GEM didn't run on CP/M. It was considerably too big and too complex
for an 8-bit CPU.

GEM's graphics API, the VDI, was partly based on Digital's Research's
CP/M graphics API, GSX, though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_Environment_Manager

GEM ran on MS-DOS, DR's own DOS+ (a forerunner of the later DR-DOS)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS_Plus

... and on the Atari ST's TOS, derived in part from CP/M-68K.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_Environment_Manager#Atari_versions

The only BBC copro that could run GEM, AFAIAA, was the BBC Master 512
with the Intel 80186.

http://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org.uk/Computers/Master512.html

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