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.
"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
//My video channel//