Yasssss, I can finally put it on that old vtech toy thing legally... https://hackaday.com/2019/10/14/repurposing-a … from-the-1990s/

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-07-19, 04:24:

Yasssss, I can finally put it on that old vtech toy thing legally... https://hackaday.com/2019/10/14/repurposing-a … from-the-1990s/

Oh, cool! Thanks for sharing! 🙂👍
When I was little, I wanted one of these so badly.

If memory serves, VTech built real Z80/8086 computers in the 80s.
And in the 90s, when their skill set was slowly becoming outdated, they continued to make toy computers / learning computers.
Anyway, they already made these things since the 80s, too. 🙂

By the way, there is ZEMU, an emulator for a full-fledged Z-80 system.
Think of it as an Altair or IMSAI 8080 era system.
It can emulate a Z80 (plus Z180, i8080) computer box with multiple I/O devices at once (serial terminals, CRT devices etc).

Most importantly, it can read various original CP/M diskette formats, so it's possible to boot an authentic DR CP/M-80 OS.
Or the wonderful MP/M, which can use multiple terminals, use more than 64KB and do multitasking.

MP/M demonstration on real hardware:
https://hackaday.io/project/163683-the-thing- … -mpm-experiment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXc8Imz-w-A&feature=emb_logo

I forgot, there also was CP/M Plus (CP/M v3) and CP/NET, a network OS..

CP/M Plus supported certain features of MP/M like bankswitching for memory, but also had higher requirements.
Perhaps that's why emulator writters didn't like to upgrade from CP/M v2.2.
Too much work for too little gain.

Back in the late 20th century, I used the C128 port on my Commodore C128D! ^^
Maybe VICE can run it, too, by now.

By the way, did you know that CP/M stood for Control Program/Monitor, originally?
That was its old name in the 70s, before its commercial success.

Jo22 wrote on 2022-07-19, 04:11:

Hi! Just saw the news! 😃 […]
Show full quote

Hi! Just saw the news! 😃

https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2022/07/15/cpm_open_source/

Best regards,
Jo22

This is awesome 😀 let us hope a small "revolution" happens so it will be ported to a lot of platforms 😀

this might generate a bit of interest in cp/m development again

not sure where, if anywhere, cp/m might be ported now though, will be interesting to follow

I'm looking forward to this! 🙂
CP/M-80 can be implemented on something as simple as an AVR microcontroller (say, ATMega88).
https://embedds.com/z80-machine-emulator-on-avr/

Things like MBASIC (BASIC-80; the GW-BASIC of its day) and the once popular Turbo Pascal 3 are easy to work with and the latter (v3.02) kind of became Freeware due to historical relevance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBASIC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_Pascal

Another CP/M system to build here.. http://searle.wales/
yes that is a URL even if it doesn't show as such because no TLD

Jo22 wrote on 2022-07-19, 04:11:

Hi! Just saw the news! 😃 […]
Show full quote

Hi! Just saw the news! 😃

https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2022/07/15/cpm_open_source/

Best regards,
Jo22

Cool.

Some one will need to update this page/web site then http://www.digitalresearch.biz/CPM.HTM

Thanks for the link(s)! 🙂

There's a new article at hackaday.com, btw..

https://hackaday.com/2022/07/19/modular-z80-r … ocomputer-cred/

Also interesting..

A NEC V30/8086 hat for the Raspberry Pi.
Can used to boot DOS, CP/M-86 (i8086/NEC V30) and technically CP/M-80 too (NEC V30 via 8080 emukation mode)..

https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/2021/06/04 … 30-on-a-pi-hat/

A NEC V20 based single board computer (SBC) that boots both primary versions of CP/M.
CP/M-86 and CPM/80.

https://hackaday.com/2020/07/10/an-nec-v20-fo … ors-in-one-sbc/

Just for fun something else. And old experiment of mine: 😅
CP/M-80 emulators for DOS and CP/M-86 running on DOS Plus.
DOS Plus was a special version of CP/M-86 with a built-in DOS emulator (DOS 2.x ABI level).
It could also run ordinary CP/M-86 programs, still.
Which was used here (Z80 is a CP/M-80 emu for CP/M-86).

Sadly, CPM86, the CP/M-86 emulator for DOS didn't run on DOS Plus, because it needed DOS v3+.
That's really sad, because the
Z80 emu runs in that CPM86 emu.

If that had worked, we could have run a CP/M-80 emulator inside an CP/M-86 emulator inside the DOS-emulator of an variant of CP/M-86 (DOS Plus).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1v3e-pF4Kg

So in few months we will have CP/M version for every possible device from the newest models of computers to coffee machines... Okey ... 🙄

Good news! Thanks for sharing. ☺️

CP/M was never a popular game platform, since it didn't even have a standardized graphics mode. But if an official open source CP/M port would be developed for the MSX architecture, replacing the still-proprietary MSX-DOS, you'd have a nicely standardized and completely open Z80-based 8-bit retro platform, with proper graphics and sound support. Something like that could give the Commander X16 some friendly competition and rekindle the rivalry between 6502 and Z80 within the retro-computing community. 😉

There are some third-party CP/M ports for MSX systems in existence, but I'm not sure if this announced CP/M release covers those ports in any way. (Probably not?)

digger wrote on 2022-07-20, 13:35:

Good news! Thanks for sharing. ☺️

CP/M was never a popular game platform, since it didn't even have a standardized graphics mode.

Hi there! Yes, gaming wasn't top priority on CP/M. 🙁
But games like Adventure or Hunt the Wumpus existed.
And some ASCII graphics games, like Pacman, Chess etc.
(Popular CP/M machines like Amstrad's "Joyce" PCW had custom graphics support built-in.)

To circumvent such issues, most commercial applications supported different terminal standards.
That involved Escape sequences etc, which allowed for scrolling, clearing screen, colour letters, blinking.

For real graphics, GSX was needed. It was an universal platform independent graphics library.
Any GSX enabled program could draw to plotter, screen etc provided that a custom library for the computer was available.
However, it came too late. 🙁

It was like set of the CGA routines in PC BIOS, I assume.
Set pixel, draw line, fill. Things like this.

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

https://www.autometer.de/unix4fun/z80pack/scr … hots/gsx80.html

https://www.seasip.info/Cpm/gsx.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B83zJQbpNM

digger wrote on 2022-07-20, 13:35:

But if an official open source CP/M port would be developed for the MSX architecture, replacing the still-proprietary MSX-DOS, you'd have a nicely standardized and completely open Z80-based 8-bit retro platform, with proper graphics and sound support. Something like that could give the Commander X16 some friendly competition and rekindle the rivalry between 6502 and Z80 within the retro-computing community. 😉

MSX was an awesome, yet underrated platform.
Especially the OPL4 project scene of the 90s waw awesome, I think.
In terms of quality, it's comparable to MT-32 world, I think.

But there's also SymbOS, which *could* be ported to all Z80 systems. If it was still being developed.
Technically, the NEC V20/V30 would be imagineable, too, I believe. Give it EMS or something similar, and it could be a powerful OS on the 16-Bit PC.

Yeah, but imagine how limiting having to handle all your RAM in 64KB pages would be..... oh wait.

Jo22 wrote on 2022-07-20, 14:40:

But there's also SymbOS, which *could* be ported to all Z80 systems. If it was still being developed.
Technically, the NEC V20/V30 would be imagineable, too, I believe. Give it EMS or something similar, and it could be a powerful OS on the 16-Bit PC.

You rang ? SymbOS has gotten a new release some time ago this year.

https://www.indieretronews.com/2022/01/symbos … essive-z80.html

Also here is SymbOS official site.

http://www.symbos.de/

Also why I think it is fantastic, that CP/M is now open source, is that if we can/could link all those computer systems together as a network. Heck why not combine the GUI from SymbOS with CP/M, then you are really having something that is incredible. If you ask me 😀 Or a combination of SymbOS and CP/M 😀 so the strength of one system can be used while the other system has its strengths 😀

Oh by the way, my comment "you rang ?" was not in any way meant as an offence.

WolverineDK wrote on 2022-07-20, 17:17:

You rang ? SymbOS has gotten a new release some time ago this year. […]
Show full quote

Jo22 wrote on 2022-07-20, 14:40:

But there's also SymbOS, which *could* be ported to all Z80 systems. If it was still being developed.
Technically, the NEC V20/V30 would be imagineable, too, I believe. Give it EMS or something similar, and it could be a powerful OS on the 16-Bit PC.

You rang ? SymbOS has gotten a new release some time ago this year.

https://www.indieretronews.com/2022/01/symbos … essive-z80.html

Also here is SymbOS official site.

http://www.symbos.de/

Also why I think it is fantastic, that CP/M is now open source, is that if we can/could link all those computer systems together as a network. Heck why not combine the GUI from SymbOS with CP/M, then you are really having something that is incredible. If you ask me 😀 Or a combination of SymbOS and CP/M 😀 so the strength of one system can be used while the other system has its strengths 😀

Oh by the way, my comment "you rang ?" was not in any way meant as an offence.

Cool thanks for the update! 😃👍
I had no idea about the progress, for a few years it looked like things stopd still. Glad I was wrong. 😁

Makes wonder if CP/M could be virtualized on SymbOS or if some features could be integrated.
Being able to run optionally basic CP/M applications at the SymbOS command line would be neat.
Even cooler if we could utilize the SymbOS functions from within Turbo Pascal 3 for CP/M-80.
That's perhaps a bit like running DOS programs on OS/2 or Win32 textmode applications on plain DOS (HX DOS Extender can do that). 😀

Quick update. The Z80 is reaching EOL (end of life). Zilog wants it to retire this year.

https://www.mouser.com/PCN/Littelfuse_PCN_Z84C00.pdf

The Z80 was important in many ways, including to CP/M.

While CP/M-80 was using pure i8080 instructions, the famous Turbo Pascal wasn't.

It made use of the Z80 specific registers. Most importantly the TP runtime was dependent on it.

That's why full Z80 emulation was required when using Turbo Pascal software. The V20/V30 didn't support them.

Users of an 8085 system had to upgrade to an NSC800 processor in order to achieve Turbo Pascal compatibility.

Edit: Note that this is not the end to the Z80 platform as a whole, maybe.
The Z80 had been produced under license by many companies. There were numerous clones and compatibles being made, as well.
For about 50 years now. I'm optimistic that it will outlive us. And the eZ80 is still being made, as well.

Jo22 wrote on 2024-04-20, 16:20:

Quick update. The Z80 is reaching EOL (end of life). Zilog wants it to retire this year. […]
Show full quote

Quick update. The Z80 is reaching EOL (end of life). Zilog wants it to retire this year.

https://www.mouser.com/PCN/Littelfuse_PCN_Z84C00.pdf

The Z80 was important in many ways, including to CP/M.

While CP/M-80 was using pure i8080 instructions, the famous Turbo Pascal wasn't.

It made use of the Z80 specific registers. Most importantly the TP runtime was dependent on it.

That's why full Z80 emulation was required when using Turbo Pascal software. The V20/V30 didn't support them.

Users of an 8085 system had to upgrade to an NSC800 processor in order to achieve Turbo Pascal compatibility.

Edit: Note that this is not the end to the Z80 platform as a whole, maybe.
The Z80 had been produced under license by many companies. There were numerous clones and compatibles being made, as well.
For about 50 years now. I'm optimistic that it will outlive us. And the eZ80 is still being made, as well.

z80 was such a ubiquitous cpu back then, along with 6502 and others

so many people would have become experts in it - for all kinds of applications whether computing of as controllers

i can imagine the 'after market' or replacements and licensed version would carry on for a lone time, and the emulation of it even longer

gerry wrote on 2024-04-23, 09:29:

i can imagine the 'after market' or replacements and licensed version would carry on for a lone time, and the emulation of it even longer

I heard that some clone chips even used to have better specs than Zilog's Z80.
That's because Zilog's specs on paper were nicer than they were in reality, so the story goes.
So clone maker who did refer to Zilog's official specs made Z80s with better timings without knowing. ;)