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CP/M-86 is a discontinued version of the
CP/M CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/Intel 8085, 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Dig ...
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...
that
Digital Research Digital Research, Inc. (DR or DRI) was a privately held American software company created by Gary Kildall to market and develop his CP/M operating system and related 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit systems like MP/M, Concurrent DOS, FlexOS, Multiuser ...
(DR) made for the
Intel 8086 The 8086 (also called iAPX 86) is a 16-bit computing, 16-bit microprocessor chip designed by Intel between early 1976 and June 8, 1978, when it was released. The Intel 8088, released July 1, 1979, is a slightly modified chip with an external 8-b ...
and
Intel 8088 The Intel 8088 ("''eighty-eighty-eight''", also called iAPX 88) microprocessor is a variant of the Intel 8086. Introduced on June 1, 1979, the 8088 has an eight-bit external data bus instead of the 16-bit bus of the 8086. The 16-bit registers ...
. The system commands are the same as in CP/M-80. Executable files used the relocatable .CMD file format. Digital Research also produced a multi-user multitasking operating system compatible with CP/M-86, MP/M-86, which later evolved into
Concurrent CP/M-86 MP/M (Multi-Programming Monitor Control Program) is a discontinued multi-user version of the CP/M operating system, created by Digital Research developer Tom Rolander in 1979. It allowed multiple users to connect to a single computer, each u ...
. When an emulator was added to provide PC DOS compatibility, the system was renamed
Concurrent DOS Multiuser DOS is a real-time multi-user multi-tasking operating system for IBM PC-compatible microcomputers. An evolution of the older Concurrent CP/M-86, Concurrent DOS and Concurrent DOS 386 operating systems, it was originally developed by ...
, which later became
Multiuser DOS Multiuser DOS is a real-time multi-user multi-tasking operating system for IBM PC-compatible microcomputers. An evolution of the older Concurrent CP/M-86, Concurrent DOS and Concurrent DOS 386 operating systems, it was originally developed by ...
, of which
REAL/32 Multiuser DOS is a real-time multi-user multi-tasking operating system for IBM PC-compatible microcomputers. An evolution of the older Concurrent CP/M-86, Concurrent DOS and Concurrent DOS 386 operating systems, it was originally developed by ...
is the latest incarnation. The
FlexOS FlexOS is a discontinued modular real-time multiuser multitasking operating system ( RTOS) designed for computer-integrated manufacturing, laboratory, retail and financial markets. Developed by Digital Research's Flexible Automation Business ...
,
DOS Plus DOS Plus (erroneously also known as DOS+) was the first operating system developed by Digital Research's OEM Support Group in Newbury, Berkshire, UK, first released in 1985. DOS Plus 1.0 was based on CP/M-86 Plus combined with the PCM ...
, and
DR DOS DR-DOS is a disk operating system for IBM PC compatibles, originally developed by Gary A. Kildall's Digital Research, Inc. and derived from Concurrent PC DOS 6.0, which was an advanced successor of CP/M-86. Upon its introduction in 1988, ...
families of operating systems started as derivations of Concurrent DOS as well.


History

Digital Research's CP/M-86 was originally announced to be released in November 1979, but was delayed repeatedly. When
IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...
contacted other companies to obtain components for the
IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the List of IBM Personal Computer models, IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible ''de facto'' standard. Released on ...
, the as-yet unreleased CP/M-86 was its first choice for an
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...
because CP/M had the most applications at the time. Negotiations between Digital Research and IBM quickly deteriorated over IBM's
non-disclosure agreement A non-disclosure agreement (NDA), also known as a confidentiality agreement (CA), confidential disclosure agreement (CDA), proprietary information agreement (PIA), or secrecy agreement (SA), is a legal contract or part of a contract between at le ...
and its insistence on a one-time fee rather than DRI's usual
royalty Royalty may refer to: * the mystique/prestige bestowed upon monarchs ** one or more monarchs, such as kings, queens, emperors, empresses, princes, princesses, etc. *** royal family, the immediate family of a king or queen-regnant, and sometimes h ...
licensing plan. After discussions with
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
, IBM decided to use
86-DOS 86-DOS (known internally as QDOS, for Quick and Dirty Operating System) is a discontinued operating system developed and marketed by Seattle Computer Products (SCP) for its Intel 8086-based computer kit. 86-DOS shared a few of its commands wi ...
(QDOS), a CP/M-like operating system that Microsoft bought from
Seattle Computer Products Seattle Computer Products (SCP) was a Tukwila, Washington, microcomputer hardware company which was one of the first manufacturers of computer systems based on the 16-bit Intel 8086 processor. Founded in 1978, SCP began shipping its first S ...
renaming it
MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few op ...
. Microsoft adapted it for the PC and licensed it to IBM. It was sold by IBM under the name of PC DOS. After learning about the deal, Digital Research founder
Gary Kildall Gary Arlen Kildall (; May 19, 1942 – July 11, 1994) was an American computer scientist and microcomputer entrepreneur. During the 1970s, Kildall created the CP/M operating system among other operating systems and programming tools, and s ...
threatened to sue IBM for infringing DRI's
intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...
, and IBM agreed to offer CP/M-86 as an alternative operating system on the PC to settle the claim. Most of the
BIOS In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is a type of firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization d ...
drivers for CP/M-86 for the IBM PC were written by Andy Johnson-Laird. The IBM PC was announced on 12 August 1981, and the first machines began shipping in October the same year, ahead of schedule. CP/M-86 was one of three operating systems available from IBM, with PC DOS and
UCSD p-System UCSD Pascal is a Pascal (programming language), Pascal programming language system that runs on the UCSD p-System, a portable, highly machine-independent operating system. UCSD Pascal was first released in 1977. It was developed at the Universit ...
. Digital Research's adaptation of CP/M-86 for the IBM PC was released six months after PC DOS in spring 1982, and porting applications from CP/M-80 to either operating system was about equally difficult. In November 1981, Digital Research also released a version for the proprietary IBM Displaywriter. On some dual-processor 8-bit/16-bit computers special versions of CP/M-86 could natively run CP/M-86 and CP/M-80 applications. A version for the
DEC Rainbow The Rainbow 100 is a microcomputer introduced by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1982. This desktop unit had a monitor similar to the VT220 and a dual-CPU box with both Zilog Z80 and Intel 8088 CPUs. The Rainbow 100 was a triple-use ma ...
was named CP/M-86/80, whereas the version for the was named CP/M 8-16 (see also: MP/M 8-16). The version of CP/M-86 for the 8085/8088-based
Zenith Z-100 The Z-100 computer is a personal computer made by Zenith Data Systems (ZDS). It was a competitor to the IBM PC. Design The Zenith Data Systems Z-100 is a pre-assembled version of the Heathkit H100 electronic kit, but unlike the Zenith Z-89 t ...
supported running programs for both processors as well. When PC clones came about, Microsoft licensed MS-DOS to other companies as well. Experts found that the two operating systems were technically comparable, with CP/M-86 having better
memory management Memory management (also dynamic memory management, dynamic storage allocation, or dynamic memory allocation) is a form of Resource management (computing), resource management applied to computer memory. The essential requirement of memory manag ...
but DOS being faster. ''
BYTE The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable un ...
'' speculated that Microsoft reserving multitasking for
Xenix Xenix is a discontinued Unix operating system for various microcomputer platforms, licensed by Microsoft from AT&T Corporation. The first version was released in 1980, and Xenix was the most common Unix variant during the mid- to late-1980s. T ...
"appears to leave a big opening" for
Concurrent CP/M-86 MP/M (Multi-Programming Monitor Control Program) is a discontinued multi-user version of the CP/M operating system, created by Digital Research developer Tom Rolander in 1979. It allowed multiple users to connect to a single computer, each u ...
. On the IBM PC, however, at per copy for IBM's version, CP/M-86 sold poorly compared to the PC DOS; one survey found that 96.3% of IBM PCs were ordered with DOS, compared to 3.4% with CP/M-86 or Concurrent CP/M-86. In mid-1982
Lifeboat Associates Lifeboat Associates, Inc., was a New York City company that was one of the largest microcomputer software distributors in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Lifeboat acted as an independent software broker marketing software to major hardware vend ...
, perhaps the largest CP/M software vendor, announced its support for DOS over CP/M-86 on the IBM PC. ''BYTE'' warned that IBM, Microsoft, and Lifeboat's support for DOS "poses a serious threat to" CP/M-86, and
Jerry Pournelle Jerry Eugene Pournelle (; August 7, 1933 – September 8, 2017) was an American scientist in the area of operations research and ergonomics, human factors research, a science fiction writer, essayist, journalist, and one of the first bloggers. ...
stated in the magazine that "it is clear that Digital Research made some terrible mistakes in the marketing". By early 1983 DRI began selling CP/M-86 1.1 to end users for . Advertisements called CP/M-86 a "terrific value", with "instant access to the largest collection of applications software in existence … hundreds of proven, professional software programs for every business and education need"; it also included
Graphics System Extension GEM (for Graphics Environment Manager) is a discontinued operating environment released by Digital Research in 1985. GEM is known primarily as the native graphical user interface of the Atari ST series of computers, providing a WIMP desktop. I ...
(GSX), formerly . The company began using distributors to sell CP/M-86 applications in retail stores. In May 1983 DRI announced that it would offer DOS versions of all of its languages and utilities. It stated that "obviously, PC DOS has made great market penetration on the IBM PC; we have to admit that", but claimed that "the fact that CP/M-86 has not done as well as DRI had hoped has nothing to do with our decision". By early 1984 DRI gave free copies of Concurrent CP/M-86 to those who purchased two CP/M-86 applications as a limited time offer, and advertisements stated that the applications were
self-booting disk A self-booting disk is a floppy disk for home computers or personal computers that loads directly into a standalone application when the system is turned on, bypassing the operating system. This was common, standard, on some computers in the lat ...
s, which did not require loading CP/M-86 first. In January 1984, DRI also announced Kanji CP/M-86, a Japanese version of CP/M-86, for nine Japanese companies including
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation is a Japanese multinational electronics and electrical equipment manufacturing company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. The company was established in 1921 as a spin-off from the electrical machinery manufacturing division of Mitsubishi Ship ...
, Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd., Sord Computer Corp. In December 1984 Fujitsu announced a number of FM-16-based machines using Kanji CP/M-86. CP/M-86 and DOS had very similar functionality, but were not compatible because the system calls for the same functions and program file formats were different, so two versions of the same software had to be produced and marketed to run under both operating systems. The command interface again had similar functionality but different syntax; where CP/M-86 (and CP/M) copied file SOURCE to TARGET with the command PIP TARGET=SOURCE, DOS used COPY SOURCE TARGET. Initially MS-DOS and CP/M-86 also ran on computers not necessarily hardware-compatible with the IBM PC such as the
Apricot An apricot (, ) is a fruit, or the tree that bears the fruit, of several species in the genus ''Prunus''. Usually an apricot is from the species '' P. armeniaca'', but the fruits of the other species in ''Prunus'' sect. ''Armeniaca'' are also ...
and
Sirius Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. Its name is derived from the Greek word (Latin script: ), meaning 'glowing' or 'scorching'. The star is designated  Canis Majoris, Latinized to Alpha Canis Majoris, and abbr ...
, the intention being that software would be independent of hardware by making standardised operating
system call In computing, a system call (syscall) is the programmatic way in which a computer program requests a service from the operating system on which it is executed. This may include hardware-related services (for example, accessing a hard disk drive ...
s to a version of the operating system custom tailored to the particular hardware. However, writers of software which required fast performance accessed the IBM PC hardware directly instead of going through the operating system, resulting in PC-specific software which performed better than other MS-DOS and CP/M-86 versions; for example, games would display fast by writing to video memory directly instead of suffering the delay of making a call to the operating system, which would then write to a hardware-dependent memory location. Non-PC-compatible computers were soon replaced by models with hardware which behaved identically to the PC's. A consequence of the universal adoption of detailed PC architecture was that no more than 640 kilobytes of memory were supported; early machines running MS-DOS and CP/M-86 did not suffer from this restriction, and some could make use of nearly one megabyte of RAM.


Reception

''
PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and continues . Overview ''PC Mag ...
'' wrote that CP/M-86 "in several ways seems better fitted to the PC" than DOS; however, for those who did not plan to program in assembly language, because it cost six times more "CP/M seems a less compelling purchase". It stated that CP/M-86 was strong in areas where DOS was weak, and vice versa, and that the level of application support for each operating system would be most important, although CP/M-86's lack of a run-time version for applications was a weakness.


Versions

A given version of CP/M-86 has two version numbers. One applies to the whole system and is usually displayed at startup; the other applies to the
BDOS CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/Intel 8085, 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Dig ...
kernel Kernel may refer to: Computing * Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems * Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution * Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming * Kernel method, in machine learnin ...
. Versions known to exist include: All known Personal CP/M-86 versions contain references to CP/M-86 Plus, suggesting that they are derived from the CP/M-86 Plus codebase. A number of 16-bit CP/M-86 derivatives existed in the former East-bloc under the names SCP1700 (), CP/K, and K8918-OS. They were produced by the East-German
VEB Robotron VEB Kombinat Robotron () (or simply Robotron) was the largest East German electronics manufacturer. It was headquartered in Dresden and employed 68,000 people in 1989. Its products included personal computers, SM EVM minicomputers, the ESER m ...
Dresden and Berlin.


Legacy

Caldera A caldera ( ) is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcanic eruption. An eruption that ejects large volumes of magma over a short period of time can cause significant detriment to the str ...
permitted the redistribution and modification of all original Digital Research files, including source code, related to the CP/M family through Tim Olmstead's "The Unofficial CP/M Web site" since 1997. After Olmstead's death on 12 September 2001, the free distribution license was refreshed and expanded by Lineo, who had meanwhile become the owner of those Digital Research assets, on 19 October 2001.


See also

* History of computing hardware (1960s-present) * SpeedStart CP/M-86 *
DOS Plus DOS Plus (erroneously also known as DOS+) was the first operating system developed by Digital Research's OEM Support Group in Newbury, Berkshire, UK, first released in 1985. DOS Plus 1.0 was based on CP/M-86 Plus combined with the PCM ...


Notes


References


Further reading

*


External links


The Unofficial CP/M Website
which has a licence from the copyright holder to distribute original Digital Research software.
The comp.os.cpm FAQ
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cp M-86 CP/M variants IBM PC compatibles Microcomputer software Digital Research operating systems Discontinued operating systems Floppy disk-based operating systems Free software operating systems X86 operating systems 1981 software