bobd@zaphod.UUCP (Bob Dalgleish) (03/27/91)
In article <1991Mar16.174555.21577@thyme.jpl.nasa.gov> kaleb@thyme.jpl.nasa.gov (Kaleb Keithley) writes: >In article <27478@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> jdb@reef.cis.ufl.edu (Brian K. W. Hook) writes: >>A friend and I got in a massive argument over who wrote the CP/M operating >>system. He claimed that it was "DEC" but I stated that it was DRI. I >>assumed all along that: >>1. CP/M was written by Gary Kildall. >>2. CP/M was written by DRI >>3. DRI is NOT related to DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) >>If I am in err, pleae let me know. >A little tidbit that may be more folklore than fact, is that Digital >Research Inc (DRI) was once known as Intergalactic Digital Research. A fact that may be even less interesting is that an early version of CP/M was written by Dr. Kildall when he worked for Intel. The system was called ISIS (and later ISIS-II) and ran on the Microprocessor Development Systems line of 8080 and 8085 based development stations. There was a user-contributed-library set of patches that would allow CP/M programs to run on top of ISIS-II by changing several of the system vectors to remap filenames, and operation numbers. The critical architectural concepts of separate BIOS and operating system, system vectoring, and filename spaces (drive letters, filename formats, etc.) were all present in the ISIS system. The external interface looked similar to the Digital Equipment Corporation operating system family structures: filename formats, drive specifications, command line arguments and flags. Even more amusing is the guy at Motorola who wrote their first 68000 development system software. He was so bemused by the DEC approach to doing things that a typical command line looked like: ,,,,PASCAL.EXE ,,DEMO,SRC,/LK=NO,,LST (note that there are no typos in the above line). The first three commas indicated that the standard search path, account number, group number could be used. The fourth comma was required to indicate something that I now forget. The rest of the commas are also required, and the comma separating the DEMO and SRC was there to indicate that it was a Pascal source program, and that the standard suffix of .PAS was not used. Note also that I told Motorola in no uncertain terms that putting that kind of abortion onto a lovely processor like the 68000 was unconscionable, and that we would not use the development system as a consequence. Motorola was not into customer service in those days ;-) Sorry about the harangue -- I just needed to remind people that I do a really good Inspector Luger impersonation %-) -- -- * * * Remember: I before E except after DALGL * * *-- Bob Dalgleish bobd@zaphod.UUCP
jedelen@slate.mines.colorado.edu (Jeff Edelen) (03/28/91)
In article <94uwy2w163w@shark.cs.fau.edu> rob.bbs@shark.cs.fau.edu (Robert Rittenhouse) writes: >jdb@reef.cis.ufl.edu (Brian K. W. Hook) writes: > >> A friend and I got in a massive argument over who wrote the CP/M operating >> system. He claimed that it was "DEC" but I stated that it was DRI. I >> assumed all along that: >> >> 1. CP/M was written by Gary Kildall. >> 2. CP/M was written by DRI >> 3. DRI is NOT related to DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) >> >> If I am in err, pleae let me know. >> >You are correct. Gary Killdall, (Intergalactic) Digital Research Inc. >CP/M was loosely based on a DEC PDP-11 OS (I think RSTS) tho. >Rob R. >> Brian I always thought it was based on TOPS. I've never used TOPS, but I have used RSTS, and can't believe it's based on that. --jeff
valley@uchicago (Doug Dougherty) (03/28/91)
jedelen@slate.mines.colorado.edu (Jeff Edelen) writes: >In article <94uwy2w163w@shark.cs.fau.edu> rob.bbs@shark.cs.fau.edu (Robert Rittenhouse) writes: >>jdb@reef.cis.ufl.edu (Brian K. W. Hook) writes: >> >>> A friend and I got in a massive argument over who wrote the CP/M operating >>> system. He claimed that it was "DEC" but I stated that it was DRI. I >>> assumed all along that: >>> >>> 1. CP/M was written by Gary Kildall. >>> 2. CP/M was written by DRI >>> 3. DRI is NOT related to DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) >>> >>> If I am in err, pleae let me know. >>> >>You are correct. Gary Killdall, (Intergalactic) Digital Research Inc. >>CP/M was loosely based on a DEC PDP-11 OS (I think RSTS) tho. >>Rob R. >>> Brian >I always thought it was based on TOPS. I've never used TOPS, but I have used >RSTS, and can't believe it's based on that. Sure it is. CP/M has the DIR cmd, PIP, device:filename (admittedly, the device names are all single character unlike RSTS), "/" as the switch character, filename.ext, etc. Of course, this belongs in alt.folklore.computers, though...
vancleef@iastate.edu (Van Cleef Henry H) (04/02/91)
In article <1991Mar28.053026.27936@slate.mines.colorado.edu> jedelen@slate.mines.colorado.edu (Jeff Edelen) writes: >In article <94uwy2w163w@shark.cs.fau.edu> rob.bbs@shark.cs.fau.edu (Robert Rittenhouse) writes: >>jdb@reef.cis.ufl.edu (Brian K. W. Hook) writes: >> >>> A friend and I got in a massive argument over who wrote the CP/M operating >>> system. He claimed that it was "DEC" but I stated that it was DRI. I >>> assumed all along that: >>> >>> 1. CP/M was written by Gary Kildall. >>> 2. CP/M was written by DRI >>> 3. DRI is NOT related to DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) >>> >>> If I am in err, pleae let me know. >>> >>You are correct. Gary Killdall, (Intergalactic) Digital Research Inc. >>CP/M was loosely based on a DEC PDP-11 OS (I think RSTS) tho. >>Rob R. >>> Brian > >I always thought it was based on TOPS. I've never used TOPS, but I have used >RSTS, and can't believe it's based on that. > >--jeff Try RSX-11M TOPS-10, 20 entirely different. --