CP/M rocks

[HRM Resident]

As I mentioned, I have what appears to be a fully functional 4 MHz 8080
CP/M computer/emulator working. This is the thing I bought around 1983:

http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/personalMicroComputers/MicroMate_PMC-101_Users_Guide_Rev3_Oct83.pdf

The emulator runs all the software I had on the above system plus
there is a library of old, legacy stuff to be had if time permits.

In the last couple of days I managed to get Turbo Pascal 3.01
working on it well, and it runs a few old 1990 era Pascal programs I
kept. There's a FORTRAN, COBOL and ALGOL compiler available for
download too. Real programming!

Lastly, it has a nice assembler, so I ought to be able to write
things in 8080 assembly language. All of this seems dumb, but it makes
more sense than calling people names on Twitter and Facebook.

--
HRM Resident

[James Warren]

I had no interest in PCs until the 486 with floating point. Before then
they could not do what I wanted to do.

My interest in computers had changed from toys to tools.

[HRM Resident]

James Warren <jwwar...@gmail.com> writes:

>
> I had no interest in PCs until the 486 with floating point.

> My interest in computers had changed from toys to tools.

It is a poor workman who blames his tools, James. :-)
This is especially true when the person doesn't take responsibility
for their failure but chooses to blame external issues (e.g. their
tools) instead. :-)

--
HRM Resident

[James Warren]

On Sunday, 4 December 2022 at 15:58:04 UTC-4, HRM Resident wrote:
> James Warren <jwwar...@gmail.com> writes:
>
> >
> > I had no interest in PCs until the 486 with floating point.
> > My interest in computers had changed from toys to tools.
> It is a poor workman who blames his tools, James. :-)

Where did I blame my tools?

> This is especially true when the person doesn't take responsibility
> for their failure but chooses to blame external issues (e.g. their
> tools) instead. :-)

You can't stop gaslighting, can you. :)

>
> --
> HRM Resident

[Mike Spencer]

HRM Resident <hrm...@gmail.com> writes:

> As I mentioned, I have what appears to be a fully functional 4 MHz 8080
> CP/M computer/emulator working. This is the thing I bought around 1983:
>
> http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/personalMicroComputers/MicroMate_PMC-101_Users_Guide_Rev3_Oct83.pdf
>
> The emulator runs all the software I had on the above system plus
> there is a library of old, legacy stuff to be had if time permits.

The only CP/M software that I really wanted to run when I moved on
from the Osborne I to MS-DOS was dBase II which I had mastered pretty
well. It would have been far more useful on a system with a HD than
it was on a dual-floppy system. I had a CP/M emulator that worked
well in general but failed with dBase II. AFAICT, the Osborne people
had hacked dBase II to optimise it for the OI and, in doing so, had
included code that depended on directly addressing the OI hardware
rather than relying on system calls. So dBase II wouldn't behave as
expected. (dBase II was a pricey option when buying a new OI. The
original owner of my first OI machine went for it, never used it,
passed it on to me when I acquired the machine, software and
peripherals in exchange for metalwork.)

Netscape did something similar in the Linux version with errno(3) so
Netscape 4.76 died for Linux after a Linux library upgrade that forced
observance of proper calling procedure.

--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada

[HRM Resident]

Mike Spencer <m...@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> writes:


>
> The only CP/M software that I really wanted to run when I moved on
> from the Osborne I to MS-DOS was dBase II which I had mastered pretty
> well.

I'm 95% sure I saw Dbase II amoung the list of packages they claim
will run on this. I'll give it a try in a day or two just to see if
whatever they are tossing at it works. Need to download and install it
. . .

--
HRM Resident

[Mike Spencer]

It's been 30 years since I moved on from CP/M and 17 years since I
delivered all 7 of my Osbornes to a (now defunct) computer museum in
Annappolis Royal. I still have an Osborne I manual but the dBase II
manual went with the computers. If I need a db I'll probably give
sqlite3 a go.

[HRM Resident]

Mike Spencer <m...@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> writes:

>
> It's been 30 years since I moved on from CP/M and 17 years since I
> delivered all 7 of my Osbornes to a (now defunct) computer museum in
> Annappolis Royal. I still have an Osborne I manual but the dBase II
> manual went with the computers. If I need a db I'll probably give
> sqlite3 a go.

I'm not trying to sell CP/M or Dbase. I use a SQLite database on my
weather station (currently about 750K records.) The CP/M "kick" is
because it was my first computer aside from minis and mainframes.


Fooling with it is nostalgic, but it's not something I'd want to use
every day! That said, I did get Dbase II working on it this AM
. . . but there's nothing I want to store in it.

--
HRM Resident

[James Warren]

So why bother? :)

[HRM Resident]

James Warren <jwwar...@gmail.com> writes:

>
> So why bother? :)
>

Why bother doing anything enjoyable?

--
HRM Resident

[James Warren]

Why is something useless enjoyable? :)