!Re: Nuke Redmond!

From: Sipke de Wal <sipke_at_wxs.nl>
Date: Fri Apr 7 15:48:11 2000

Microsoft also was involved in the (in)famous MSX standard and they
developed MSX-DOS for it. It had the MS-DOS commands but was enough
compatible to run the ZCP3 CP/M extension on it.
Lots of programscreens looked weird because of the different way the console
screen was handled but it worked.

Even now MS-DOS still has the old FCBS. These are the File Control Block
structure that
CP/M uses to keep files open. Some old Turbo Pascal 3.0 software still uses
it.
MS-DOS 3.0 mostly did away with that and intruduced filehandles.
But even in MS-DOS 4.0 the FCBS structures were still used in conjunction
with the SHARE.EXE utility to allow harddisks larger than 32MB

remember this one ?
"SHARE.EXE should be installed for large media"

Beware if you did not follow this advise with a +32MB drive.




----- Original Message -----
From: Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner <spc_at_armigeron.com>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 9:13 PM
Subject: Re: !Re: Nuke Redmond!


> It was thus said that the Great Richard Erlacher once stated:
> >
> > > MS DOS:
> > > They bought a clone of CP/M
> > >
> > I used CP/M every day for about six years. When I saw my first MS-DOS,
I
> > noted that the console command for a file list was 'DIR' and 'TYPE' and
> > that's where the similarity ended. The file system architecture and
> > associated function set was totally different from CP/M's, and the
console
> > commands were different. What they had in common beyond 'DIR' was that
they
> > responded to keyboard commands just like ALL other OS'. CP/M used PIP
> > rather than Copy. Are you now going to say they swiped that from OS-8?
I
> > just can't convince my self that there's much in common between MSDOS
and
> > CP/M.
>
> The similarities of MS-DOS to CP/M are mostly internal. In looking over
> the list of OS functions between the two, the first 36 functions of each
are
> the same, with a few notable exceptions where the concept don't match
> (MS-DOS for example does not have an IOBYTE).
>
> There are also two ways to call MS-DOS functions, one through the
> documented interrupt call (INT 21h), the other a call to location 0005h
> (that is, for a COM program consisting of a single segment, calling
location
> 0005h in the current segment has the same effect of calling INT 21h---for
an
> EXE program you may not be able to do it since the PSP (the segment the
call
> lives in) is in a different segment than the rest of the program
> typically)), which is how you call BDOS in CP/M.
>
> You can also terminate a program by calling location 0000h (again, in a
> COM program). In CP/M this causes a warm reset (similar functionality).
>
> The register usage is different, but that's only to be expected because
of
> differences between the 8080 and 8086, but 8080 code could be mechanically
> translated to 8086 since there was a one-to-one relationship between
> registers. It wouldn't produce optimal code, but it would produce code
that
> would more or less work and these register mappings map pretty well
between
> the CP/M and MS-DOS calls.
>
> Tim Patterson, who wrote the initial version of MS-DOS while at Seattle
> Products, may have had access to CP/M sources since Seattle Products sold
> CP/M systems and they were working on an 8086 based computer in the late
> 70s. Tim probably modeled his QDOS (Quick-n-Dirty Operating System)
closely
> after CP/M (some say he may have mechanically translated CP/M since
> copyright statements to Digital Research have allegedly been found in
MS-DOS
> 1.x but I haven't seen any). Why not? It would have been a quick and
easy
> way to get an OS for the 8086 system up and running.
>
> Microsoft's coming along and obtaining QDOS for $50,000 isn't that
> straightforward but that's a story for another time.
>
> > > MS Visual BASIC:
> > > Now this one has bothered me for several years, did they buy the
underlying
> > > technology or copy something that already existed. I've a strange
feeling
> > > that this one was actual innovation!
>
> Apple was working on a version of BASIC for the Macintosh that would
> resemble VB today in the late 80s/early 90s. Microsoft got wind of it and
> threatened to cut their license to Microsoft BASIC for the APPLE II (still
> amoney maker at the time) if Apple actually released the product. Apple
> towed the line and what do you know---Microsoft produces this very
> innovative product called Visual Basic shortly thereafter, but for
Windows.
>
> To my knowledge, the Apple ``Visual Basic'' never saw the light of day.
>
> -spc (All on topic, stuff happened more than 10 years ago)
>
Received on Fri Apr 07 2000 - 15:48:11 BST