CP/M source code released

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freitasm

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#153751 6-Oct-2014 22:10

http://www.computerhistory.org/_static/atchm/early-digital-research-cpm-source-code/#code

From Computer History Museum:

We are releasing scanned printer listings and/or machine-readable source code for four early versions of CP/M dating from 1975 to 1979. Some versions are incomplete, but please don't ask us for what is missing because we are releasing everything we have.

This material is provided for non-commercial use only. All the files are combined into one ZIP file with four directories representing the four versions.

The zip file is a 170MB download.

Although my first (and longest job) was with Burroughs/Unisys mainframes, CP/M was the OS of choice at university back then (early and mid-80s), actually the MP/M version.

Good memories.

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JimmyH

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#1148729 6-Oct-2014 22:37

I'm coming over all nostalgic reading that post. I still have a machine (emulated) that can run CP/M - I can still remember the basic commands, but it's been so long since I have used it seriously that I have more or less forgotten how to do much at all with it. I cut my teeth on that and Apple Dos 3.3 (the circa 1979 release from memory, running the by the standards of those days massive-memory capacity of 48K machine). Ahhh, memories of mis-spent teenage years.........

wired

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#1148859 7-Oct-2014 08:14

Yes they were fun days. I still have my original CP/M 2.2 disks and manual since I can't throw them away. Nice big 8 inch disks.

And to think that CP/M (or rather MP/M) could have been the operating system that IBM had adopted rather than MS-DOS and it didn't make it because the person who was authorised to sign the agreement was flying his plane that day so they went to Bill Gates.

Rikkitic

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#1157559 18-Oct-2014 17:25

wired:

And to think that CP/M (or rather MP/M) could have been the operating system that IBM had adopted rather than MS-DOS and it didn't make it because the person who was authorised to sign the agreement was flying his plane that day so they went to Bill Gates.

I'm not so sure that would have been an improvement. As I recall, even copying a single file was a nightmare under CP/M requiring many convoluted and completely unintuitive multiple steps. The hardest thing I ever did in my life was teach myself assembly programming from the CP/M manual. Man was that thing ever obscure! They really didn't want the uninitiated learning any secrets. My first serious computer was a Kaypro, by the way. I got started hacking Wordstar hex code to streamline some of the ' Are You sure?' types of confirmation requests that really began to grate after the hundredth time or so.

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freitasm

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#1157571 18-Oct-2014 18:11

Rikkitic: I'm not so sure that would have been an improvement. As I recall, even copying a single file was a nightmare under CP/M requiring many convoluted and completely unintuitive multiple steps.

PIP was very simple:

PIP B:FILE.TXT = A:FILE.TXT

"Copy file a:file.txt to b:file.txt"

The only strange thing here is the reverse notation when compared to MS/DOS, but seeing CP/M came before it I don't think people had problems.

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#1157589 18-Oct-2014 19:42

I don't really remember any more. I just remember I had a lot of trouble working it out. I do have a vague recollection of PIP, though. Maybe it was just me.

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