I'd completely agree with your observation regarding the OS. Further, I'd say
the Z80 wouldn't have been the success it turned out to be, but for CP/M.
The OS that Apple produced was the only major OS for the 6502 as far as I know.
I recognize there were some later attempts at an OS for the later systems by
Commodore et al but they were never comparable with CP/M or Apple DOS.
One of our local 6502'ers wrote a pretty sensible OS for the 6502 that was
ported to several systems including a KIM-1 with extra memory, and, among
others, my home-built version of a 6502-group favorite homebrew. I didn't like
the results folks were getting with their Apples, and, being a stubborn guy, I
insisted on using it to do my correspondence, etc, until, finally, I broke down
and went to CP/M, since it was SOOO much easier and more convenient. One taste
and the infatuation with the 6502 for doing "useful work" was over. I didn't
even give up CP/M when faced with the incresing popularity of the IBM PC until
MS-DOS 3.2 came out. I continued to use the 6502 for control and communication
tasks, however.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "ajp166" <ajp166_at_bellatlantic.net>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, December 21, 2001 7:40 PM
Subject: Re: 6502/Z80 speed comparison (was MITS 2SIO serial chip?)
> From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
>
>
> >without modification, in most cases, on a Z80,.by the time the 6502
> became
> >popular. Now, I've always believed the 6502 at 1 MHz to compare
> favorably with
> >the 4 MHz Z80, but I used the Z80 running CP/M 2.2 to do useful work,
> since it
> >was a lot more trouble squeezing useful work out of a 6502 back in
> '78-'79.
>
>
> If anything I'd say CP/M was a factor more than any virtue of Z80. I say
> that as
> most "z80" code underused the Z80 as a fancy 8080. One may wonder if a
> cp/m like (or better!) OS existed for 6502 such that it was portable or
> easily
> ported if things may have developed differently.
>
> Allison
>
>
>
>
>
Received on Fri Dec 21 2001 - 23:19:27 GMT