Announced on May 17, 1982, the SMC-70 is a microcomputer that was produced by Sony and released in September 1982. The system was initially released for general office use in the United States, with the SMC-70G and SMC-70GP (released in 1983) designed for professional video generation, for example in character generation applications and digital video effect generation.
129-396: The SMC-70 was the second Sony device that used Sony's recently invented 3.5" micro floppy disk drive (first introduced in 1980) that was modified to become the industry standard. Like many home and office computers of the era, it had its own specially developed version of BASIC called Sony BASIC, designed to take advantage of a color Sony Trinitron display. With optional expansion ROMs
258-529: A US$ 100 drive (equivalent to $ 540 in 2023). According to Massaro, Adkisson proposed a smaller size and began working with cardboard mockups before the Wang meeting. George Sollman suggests the size was the average of existing tape drives of the era. It is an urban legend that the physical size came about when they met with Wang at a bar in Boston; when he was asked what size would be appropriate, Wang pointed to
387-507: A 3-inch single-sided, double-density (180 KB) drive in their CPC and some models of PCW . The PCW 8512 included a double-sided, quad-density (720 KB) drive as the second drive, and later models, such as the PCW 9512 , used quad-density even for the first drive. The single-sided double density (180 KB) drive was "inherited" by the ZX Spectrum +3 computer after Amstrad bought
516-413: A ROM firmware chip) loads the operating system from the disk in drive A: . By modern standards CP/M is primitive, owing to the extreme constraints on program size. With version 1.0 there is no provision for detecting a changed disk. If a user changes disks without manually rereading the disk directory the system writes on the new disk using the old disk's directory information, ruining the data stored on
645-456: A Teflon coating to the magnetic disk itself. When the first microcomputers were being developed in the 1970s, the 8-inch floppy found a place on them as one of the few "high speed, mass storage" devices that were even remotely affordable to the target market (individuals and small businesses). The first microcomputer operating system, CP/M , originally shipped on 8-inch disks. However, the drives were still expensive, typically costing more than
774-408: A cocktail napkin —there was no such meeting. The new drive of this size stored 98.5 KB, later increased to 110 KB by adding five tracks. The 5¼ drive was considerably less expensive than 8-inch drives, and soon started appearing on CP/M machines. Shugart's initial 5.25" drive was the 35-track, single-sided SA-400, which was widely used in many early microcomputers, and which introduced
903-468: A competitor in the spreadsheet market in the MS-DOS world. AutoCAD , a CAD application from Autodesk debuted on CP/M. A host of compilers and interpreters for popular programming languages of the time (such as BASIC , Borland 's Turbo Pascal , FORTRAN and even PL/I ) were available, among them several of the earliest Microsoft products. CP/M software often came with installers that adapted it to
1032-430: A component of the 3740 Data Entry System , designed to directly replace IBM's punched card ("keypunch") data entry machines. The medium sold separately as "Diskette 1". The new system used a soft sector recording format that stored nearly 250 kB on a disk. Drives supporting this format were offered by a number of manufacturers and soon became common for moving smaller amounts of data. This disk format became known as
1161-528: A corporation change-of-name filing to Digital Research, Inc. By September 1981, Digital Research had sold more than 250,000 CP/M licenses; InfoWorld stated that the actual market was likely larger because of sublicenses. Many different companies produced CP/M-based computers for many different markets; the magazine stated that "CP/M is well on its way to establishing itself as the small-computer operating system". The companies chose to support CP/M because of its large library of software. The Xerox 820 ran
1290-548: A coupon had to be obtained and mailed in) and subsequent phaseout of stand-alone MS-DOS with version 6.22 forced many of them to upgrade their hardware. On most new computers, the 5¼-inch drives were optional equipment. By the mid-1990s, the drives had virtually disappeared as the 3½-inch disk became the predominant floppy disk. During the development of the Apple Lisa , Apple developed a disk format codenamed Twiggy , and officially known as FileWare . While basically similar to
1419-547: A density of 4410 bits per inch, data transmission rate of 101.6 kbit/s, a 2.8-inch double sided disk type and a capacity of up to 20 sectors per side at 2.5 kB per sector, up to 100 kB per disk. Quick Disk as used in the Famicom Disk System holds 64 kB of data per side, requiring a manual turn-over to access the second side. Unusually, the Quick Disk utilizes "a continuous linear tracking of
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#17327981691121548-780: A directory except those marked with the SYS attribute), DIRSYS / DIRS (list files marked with the SYS attribute in the directory), ERASE / ERA (delete a file), RENAME / REN (rename a file), TYPE / TYP (display contents of an ASCII character file), and USER / USE (change user number) as built-in commands: CP/M 3 allows the user to abbreviate the built-in commands. Transient commands in CP/M 3 include COPYSYS , DATE , DEVICE , DUMP , ED , GET , HELP , HEXCOM , INITDIR , LINK , MAC , PIP, PUT , RMAC , SET , SETDEF , SHOW , SID , SUBMIT , and XREF . The Basic Disk Operating System, or BDOS, provides access to such operations as opening
1677-464: A directory or ERA to delete a file) or loads and starts an executable file of the given name (transient commands such as PIP.COM to copy files or STAT.COM to show various file and system information). Third-party applications for CP/M are also essentially transient commands. The BDOS, CCP and standard transient commands are the same in all installations of a particular revision of CP/M, but the BIOS portion
1806-469: A double-density disk (having lower coercivity media), the strongly magnetized oxide particles would begin to affect the magnetic charge of adjacent particles. The net effect is that the disk would begin to erase itself. On the other hand, the opposite procedure (attempting to format an HD disk as DD) would fail almost every time, as the high-coercivity media would not retain data written by the low-power DD field. High-density 3½-inch disks avoided this problem by
1935-449: A dozen different CP/M systems, plus two generic versions. The operating system was described as a " software bus ", allowing multiple programs to interact with different hardware in a standardized way. Programs written for CP/M were typically portable among different machines, usually requiring only the specification of the escape sequences for control of the screen and printer. This portability made CP/M popular, and much more software
2064-399: A drive that led to the world's first floppy disk and disk drive. It was introduced into the market in an 8-inch (20 cm) format in 1971. The more conveniently sized 5¼-inch disks were introduced in 1976, and became almost universal on dedicated word processing systems and personal computers . This format was more slowly replaced by the 3½-inch format, first introduced in 1982. There was
2193-429: A file, output to the console, or printing. Application programs load processor registers with a function code for the operation, and addresses for parameters or memory buffers , and call a fixed address in memory. Since the address is the same independent of the amount of memory in the system, application programs run the same way for any type or configuration of hardware. The Basic Input Output System or BIOS, provides
2322-482: A higher wattage power supply (1.3A at 120V - 156 watts), an additional externally available expansion port (a total of four) on the expansion bus, two additional internal I/O expansion ports (used by the genlocking hardware), and an NTSC video genlocker. The SMC-70GP has a PAL video genlocker. The system interfaced with video devices (e.g. laserdisc player, videotape system) to mix computer generated graphics with live video. Sony SMC-70 specifications: While
2451-419: A later special series of five games did include a protective shutter. Mitsumi's "3-inch" Quick Disk media were also used in a 3-inch×3-inch housing for many Smith Corona word processors. The Smith Corona disks are confusingly labeled "DataDisk 2.8-inch", presumably referring to the size of the medium inside the hard plastic case. The Quick Disk was also used in several MIDI keyboards and MIDI samplers of
2580-518: A market opportunity for such a device so came close to cancelling the project. A chance encounter in San Jose between IBM's Jack Harker and Don Stephenson the site manager of IBM's General Systems Division, Rochester MN, who needed a product to compete with Mohawk's key to tape system led to the production of IBM's first read/write FDD, the 33FD code named "IGAR." The 33FD first shipped in May 1973 as
2709-452: A new high- coercivity oxide coating (after soft sector formatting became standard, previous increases in density were largely enabled by improvements in head technology; up until that point, the media formulation had essentially remained the same since 1976). In order to format or write to this high-coercivity media, the high-density drive switched its heads into a mode using a stronger magnetic field. When these stronger fields were written onto
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#17327981691122838-443: A number of advantages over the older format, including a small form factor and a rigid case with a slideable write protect catch. The almost-universal use of the 5 + 1 ⁄ 4 -inch format made it very difficult for any of these new formats to gain any significant market share. Some of these formats included Dysan and Shugart's 3 + 1 ⁄ 4 -inch floppy disk, the later ubiquitous Sony 3 + 1 ⁄ 2 -inch disk and
2967-478: A part of the Amateur Computer Club of New Jersey . ZCPR2 was released on 14 February 1983. It was released as a set of ten disks from SIG/M. ZCPR2 was upgraded to 2.3, and also was released in 8080 code, permitting the use of ZCPR2 on 8080 and 8085 systems. ZCPR3 was released on 14 July 1984, as a set of nine disks from SIG/M. The code for ZCPR3 could also be compiled (with reduced features) for
3096-516: A prevailing naming scheme of the time, as in Kildall's PL/M language, and Prime Computer's PL/P ( Programming Language for Prime ), both suggesting IBM's PL/I ; and IBM's CP/CMS operating system, which Kildall had used when working at the NPS. This renaming of CP/M was part of a larger effort by Kildall and his wife with business partner, Dorothy McEwen to convert Kildall's personal project of CP/M and
3225-508: A program was not standardized, so that there is no single option character that differentiated options from file names. Different programs can and do use different characters. The CP/M Console Command Processor includes DIR , ERA , REN , SAVE , TYPE , and USER as built-in commands. Transient commands in CP/M include ASM , DDT , DUMP , ED , LOAD , MOVCPM [ pl ] , PIP , STAT , SUBMIT , and SYSGEN . CP/M Plus (CP/M Version 3) includes DIR (display list of files from
3354-441: A read-only, 8-inch-diameter (200 mm) flexible diskette called the "memory disk" and holding 80 kilobytes of data. Initially the disk was bare, but dirt became a serious problem so they enclosed it in a plastic envelope lined with fabric that would remove dust particles. The Floppy Disk Patent #3,668,658 was issued on June 6, 1972, with named inventors Ralph Flores and Herbert E. Thompson. The Floppy Disk Drive Patent #3,678,481
3483-781: A relocating assembler and linker. CP/M 3 was available for the last generation of 8-bit computers, notably the Amstrad PCW, the Amstrad CPC , the ZX Spectrum +3 , the Commodore 128 , MSX machines and the Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 4 . There were versions of CP/M for some 16-bit CPUs as well. The first version in the 16-bit family was CP/M-86 for the Intel 8086 in November 1981. Kathryn Strutynski
3612-429: A second write-enable slot and index hole into the carrier envelope and flipping it over (thus, the “ flippy disk ”) to use the other side for additional storage. This was considered risky by some as single sided disks were only certified by the manufacturer for single-sided use. The reasoning was that, when flipped, the disk would spin in the opposite direction inside its cover, so some of the dirt that had been collected by
3741-549: A see-through hole near the center spindle (used to ensure spindle clamping). Nintendo packaged the 2.8-inch magnetic media in a 3-inch×4-inch housing, while others packaged the same media in a 3-inch×3-inch square housing. The Quick Disk's most successful use was in Nintendo's Famicom Disk System (FDS). The FDS package of Mitsumi's Quick Disk used a 3-inch×4-inch plastic housing called the "Disk Card". Most FDS disks did not have cover protection to prevent media contamination, but
3870-411: A significant period where both were popular. A number of other variant sizes were introduced over time, with limited market success. Floppy disks remained a popular medium for nearly 40 years, but their use was declining by the mid- to late 1990s. The introduction of high speed computer networking and formats based on the new NAND flash technique (like USB flash drives and memory cards ) led to
3999-558: A smaller surface. Another problem was that the 5 + 1 ⁄ 4 -inch disks were simply scaled down versions of the 8-inch disks, which had never really been engineered for ease of use. The thin folded-plastic shell allowed the disk to be easily damaged through bending, and allowed dirt to get onto the disk surface through the opening. A number of solutions were developed, with drives at 2-inch , 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 -inch, 3-inch and 3 + 1 ⁄ 2 -inch (50, 60, 75 and 90 mm), all being offered by various companies. They all shared
Sony SMC-70 - Misplaced Pages Continue
4128-523: A spring-loaded shutter prior to inserting a disk). Sony released an updated floppy disk based on the new standards (OM-D3320) that is compatible with both the SMC-70 and contemporary computers. Though the SMC-70 was never offered with a double-sided disk drive, later releases of CP/M for the SMC-70 (e.g. 2.0) added support for double sided drives (e.g. OA-D32W), along with 40 and 80 track 5.25" drives. Sony released three families of 26 pin 600 RPM drives,
4257-575: A standard 5 + 1 ⁄ 4 -inch disk, the Twiggy disk had an additional set of write windows on the top of the disk with the label running down the side. The drive was also present in prototypes of the original Apple Macintosh computer, but was removed in both the Mac and later versions of the Lisa in favor of the 3 + 1 ⁄ 2 -inch floppy disk from Sony. The drives were notoriously unreliable and Apple
4386-530: A user-installed overlay containing all the code required to access a particular machine's serial port. WordStar, one of the first widely used word processors , and dBase , an early and popular database program for microcomputers, were originally written for CP/M. Two early outliners , KAMAS (Knowledge and Mind Amplification System) and its cut-down successor Out-Think (without programming facilities and retooled for 8080/V20 compatibility) were also written for CP/M, though later rewritten for MS-DOS. Turbo Pascal ,
4515-540: A wide variety of computers. The source code for BASIC programs was easily accessible, and most forms of copy protection were ineffective on the operating system. A Kaypro II owner, for example, would obtain software on Xerox 820 format, then copy it to and run it from Kaypro-format disks. The lack of standardized graphics support limited video games , but various character and text-based games were ported , such as Telengard , Gorillas , Hamurabi , Lunar Lander , along with early interactive fiction including
4644-418: Is a disk operating system and its purpose is to organize files on a magnetic storage medium, and to load and run programs stored on a disk. Initially confined to single-tasking on 8-bit processors and no more than 64 kilobytes of memory, later versions of CP/M added multi-user variations and were migrated to 16-bit processors . The combination of CP/M and S-100 bus computers became an early standard in
4773-481: Is a disk storage medium composed of a thin and flexible magnetic storage medium encased in a rectangular plastic carrier. It is read and written using a floppy disk drive (FDD). Floppy disks were an almost universal data format from the 1970s into the 1990s, used for primary data storage as well as for backup and data transfers between computers. In 1967, at an IBM facility in San Jose, California , work began on
4902-451: Is always adapted to the particular hardware. Adding memory to a computer, for example, means that the CP/M system must be reinstalled to allow transient programs to use the additional memory space. A utility program (MOVCPM) is provided with system distribution that allows relocating the object code to different memory areas. The utility program adjusts the addresses in absolute jump and subroutine call instructions to new addresses required by
5031-534: The Zork series and Colossal Cave Adventure . Text adventure specialist Infocom was one of the few publishers to consistently release their games in CP/M format. Lifeboat Associates started collecting and distributing user-written "free" software. One of the first was XMODEM , which allowed reliable file transfers via modem and phone line. Another program native to CP/M was the outline processor KAMAS. The read/write memory between address 0100 hexadecimal and
5160-589: The PDP-11 and OS/8 for the PDP-8 . Commands take the form of a keyword followed by a list of parameters separated by spaces or special characters. Similar to a Unix shell builtin , if an internal command is recognized, it is carried out by the CCP itself. Otherwise it attempts to find an executable file on the currently logged disk drive and (in later versions) user area, loads it, and passes it any additional parameters from
5289-529: The TOPS-10 operating system of the DECsystem-10 mainframe computer , which Kildall had used as a development environment. An early outside licensee of CP/M was Gnat Computers , an early microcomputer developer out of San Diego, California . In 1977, the company was granted the license to use CP/M 1.0 for any micro they desired for $ 90. Within the year, demand for CP/M was so high that Digital Research
Sony SMC-70 - Misplaced Pages Continue
5418-486: The extension .COM on disk. The BIOS directly controls hardware components other than the CPU and main memory. It contains functions such as character input and output and the reading and writing of disk sectors. The BDOS implements the CP/M file system and some input/output abstractions (such as redirection) on top of the BIOS. The CCP takes user commands and either executes them directly (internal commands such as DIR to show
5547-497: The 1970s and 1980s, the floppy drive was the primary storage device for word processors and microcomputers . Since these machines had no hard drive, the OS was usually booted from one floppy disk, which was then removed and replaced by another one containing the application. Some machines using two disk drives (or one dual drive) allowed the user to leave the OS disk in place and simply change
5676-401: The 1980s, the 5¼-inch disks had been superseded by the 3½-inch disks. Though 5¼-inch drives were still available, as were disks, they faded in popularity as the 1990s began. The main community of users was primarily those who still owned 1980s legacy machines (PCs running DOS or home computers ) that had no 3½-inch drive; the advent of Windows 95 (not even sold in stores in a 5¼-inch version;
5805-470: The 3-inch format: The 3-inch floppy drive itself was manufactured by Hitachi , Matsushita and Maxell . Only Teac outside this "network" is known to have produced drives. Similarly, only three manufacturers of media (Maxell, Matsushita and Tatung ) are known (sometimes also branded Yamaha , Amsoft , Panasonic , Schneider , Tandy , Godexco and Dixons ), but "no-name" disks with questionable quality have been seen in circulation. Amstrad included
5934-444: The 34-pin interface that would become an industry standard. It could be used with either a hard or soft sectored controller, and storage capacity was listed as 90k (single density) or 113k (double density). The drive went on sale in late 1976 at a list price of $ 400, with a box of ten disks at $ 60. The new, smaller disk format was taken up quickly, and by 1978 ten different manufacturers were producing 5¼-inch drives. At one point, Shugart
6063-441: The 7-bit boundary. In the 8-bit versions, while running, the CP/M operating system loaded into memory has three components: The BIOS and BDOS are memory-resident, while the CCP is memory-resident unless overwritten by an application, in which case it is automatically reloaded after the application finished running. A number of transient commands for standard utilities are also provided. The transient commands reside in files with
6192-429: The 8080 I/O address space. All of these variations in the hardware are concealed from other modules of the system by use of the BIOS, which uses standard entry points for the services required to run CP/M such as character I/O or accessing a disk block. Since support for serial communication to a modem is very rudimentary in the BIOS or may be absent altogether, it is common practice for CP/M programs that use modems to have
6321-421: The 8080 and would run on systems that did not have the requisite Z80 microprocessor. Features of ZCPR as of version 3 included shells, aliases, I/O redirection, flow control, named directories, search paths, custom menus, passwords, and online help. In January 1987, Richard Conn stopped developing ZCPR, and Echelon asked Jay Sage (who already had a privately enhanced ZCPR 3.1) to continue work on it. Thus, ZCPR 3.3
6450-454: The A/C line and spun constantly. Other later models used a DC motor with corresponding changes to the interface to start and stop the motor. In a 1976 meeting, An Wang of Wang Laboratories informed Jim Adkisson and Don Massaro of Shugart Associates that the 8-inch format was simply too large and expensive for the desktop word processing machines he was developing at the time, and argued for
6579-429: The CP/M base included Robert "Bob" Silberstein and David "Dave" K. Brown. CP/M originally stood for "Control Program/Monitor", a name which implies a resident monitor —a primitive precursor to the operating system. However, during the conversion of CP/M to a commercial product, trademark registration documents filed in November 1977 gave the product's name as "Control Program for Microcomputers". The CP/M name follows
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#17327981691126708-910: The DPQ-280 Quickdisk for the Daewoo/Dynadata MSX1 DPC-200, in the Dragon 32/64 machine, in the Crescent Quick Disk 128, 128i and 256 peripherals for the ZX Spectrum, and in the Triton Quick Disk peripheral also for the ZX Spectrum. The World of Spectrum FAQ reveals that the drives did come in different sizes: 128 to 256 kB in Crescent's incarnation, and in the Triton system, with
6837-645: The Digital Research distributed core of CP/M (BDOS, CCP, core transient commands) did not use any of the Z80-specific instructions, many Z80-based systems used Z80 code in the system-specific BIOS, and many applications were dedicated to Z80-based CP/M machines. Digital Research subsequently partnered with Zilog and American Microsystems to produce Personal CP/M, a ROM-based version of the operating system aimed at lower-cost systems that could potentially be equipped without disk drives. First featured in
6966-589: The IBM PC after DRI threatened legal action, it never overtook Microsoft's system. Most customers were repelled by the significantly greater price IBM charged for CP/M-86 over PC DOS ( US$ 240 and US$ 40, respectively). When Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) put out the Rainbow 100 to compete with IBM, it came with CP/M-80 using a Z80 chip, CP/M-86 or MS-DOS using an 8088 microprocessor, or CP/M-86/80 using both. The Z80 and 8088 CPUs ran concurrently. A benefit of
7095-471: The IBM-compatible platform, and it never regained its former popularity. Byte magazine, at the time one of the leading industry magazines for microcomputers, essentially ceased covering CP/M products within a few years of the introduction of the IBM PC. For example, in 1983 there were still a few advertisements for S-100 boards and articles on CP/M software, but by 1987 these were no longer found in
7224-576: The Intel 8080 processor into .A86 source code for the Intel 8086. The translator would also optimize the output for code size and take care of calling conventions, so that CP/M-80 and MP/M-80 programs could be ported to the CP/M-86 and MP/M-86 platforms automatically. XLT86 itself was written in PL/I-80 and was available for CP/M-80 platforms as well as for VAX/VMS . Many expected that CP/M would be
7353-489: The Intel-contracted PL/M compiler into a commercial enterprise. The Kildalls intended to establish the Digital Research brand and its product lines as synonymous with "microcomputer" in the consumer's mind, similar to what IBM and Microsoft together later successfully accomplished in making " personal computer " synonymous with their product offerings. Intergalactic Digital Research, Inc. was later renamed via
7482-479: The MSX computer in 1984. The Quick Disk format is referred to in various size references: 2.8-inch, 3-inch×3-inch and 3-inch×4-inch. Mitsumi offered this as OEM equipment, expecting their VAR customers to customize the packaging for their own particular use; disks thus vary in storage capacity and casing size. The Quick Disk uses a 2.8-inch magnetic media, break-off write-protection tabs (one for each side), and contains
7611-517: The NIAT, a custom handheld computer designed for A. C. Nielsen 's internal use with 1 MB of SSD memory. In 1979, a multi-user compatible derivative of CP/M was released. MP/M allowed multiple users to connect to a single computer, using multiple terminals to provide each user with a screen and keyboard. Later versions ran on 16-bit processors. The last 8-bit version of CP/M was version 3, often called CP/M Plus, released in 1983. Its BDOS
7740-504: The OA-D30V, OA-D31V, and OA-D32V/W (80 track, single/double sided). Only the OA-D30V and OA-D31V (also called MFD-31V) could read the original 3.5" format due to differences in magnetic coercivity. The system could run software designed for CP/M 2.2, though many companies released special Sony versions to support the color display (such as SuperCalc and VisiCalc ). History of the floppy disk#3 1⁄2-inch format A floppy disk
7869-638: The OS and BIOS (this was also a common problem in early DOS machines). Bill Gates claimed that the Apple II with a Z-80 SoftCard was the single most-popular CP/M hardware platform. Many different brands of machines ran the operating system, some notable examples being the Altair 8800 , the IMSAI 8080 , the Osborne 1 and Kaypro luggables , and MSX computers. The best-selling CP/M-capable system of all time
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#17327981691127998-463: The PC. By 1977 Shugart had been purchased by Xerox, who closed the operations in 1985 and sold the brand to a third party. In 1978 I.T.C. (later called Verbatim), had approximately 35 percent of the estimated $ 135 million floppy disk market and sold 5¼-inch disks in large quantities for $ 1.50 each (equivalent to $ 7 in 2023). Apple purchased bare SA-400 drive mechanisms for their Disk II drive, which
8127-565: The Rainbow was that it could continue to run 8-bit CP/M software, preserving a user's possibly sizable investment as they moved into the 16-bit world of MS-DOS. A similar dual-processor adaption for the CompuPro System 816 [ sr ] was named CP/M 8-16 . The CP/M-86 adaptation for the 8085/8088-based Zenith Z-100 also supported running programs for both of its CPUs. Soon following CP/M-86, another 16-bit version of CP/M
8256-502: The S83 was quoted as $ 32 in 1,000 unit quantities. On most machines the bootstrap was a minimal bootloader in ROM combined with some means of minimal bank switching or a means of injecting code on the bus (since the 8080 needs to see boot code at Address 0 for start-up, while CP/M needs RAM there); for others, this bootstrap had to be entered into memory using front-panel controls each time
8385-562: The SMC-70 was Sony's first computer with a 3.5" disk drive compatible with single-sided double-density (SSDD) 3.5" disks, it was not the first Sony device to use the drives. In 1980, Sony announced the Series 35 word processor (OA-S3300) in the United States, which was the first product to use the technology when released in 1981. The original 3.5" floppy disk (OM-D3310) created by Sony was not compatible with later 3.5" drives due to
8514-543: The Sharp MZ-800, a cassette-based system with optional disk drives, Personal CP/M was described as having been "rewritten to take advantage of the enhanced Z-80 instruction set" as opposed to preserving portability with the 8080. American Microsystems announced a Z80-compatible microprocessor, the S83, featuring 8 KB of in-package ROM for the operating system and BIOS, together with comprehensive logic for interfacing with 64-kilobit dynamic RAM devices. Unit pricing of
8643-501: The Single Sided Single Density or SSSD format. It was designed to hold the same amount of data as 3000 punch cards . In 1973, Shugart founded Shugart Associates which went on to become the dominant manufacturer of 8-inch floppy disk drives. Its SA800 became the industry standard for form factor and interface. In 1976, media supplier Information Terminals Corporation enhanced resilience further by adding
8772-522: The Sony standard disks (OM-D3310) and the future Microfloppy Industry Committee standard (though only the first 70 tracks under Sony's release of CP/M 2.2 ). An updated disk drive was released (the OA-D31V) that had the capability of opening a spring-loaded disk shutter (these drives were labeled with "Auto Shutter" on the drive to alert the user that it was not necessary to open the disk shutter on disks with
8901-597: The Videotizer (a device that converted analog images to a digital format that could be manipulated), or the 16-bit Supercharger. Internally the SMC-70 had two I/O expansion bus connectors, one of which was used by the 3.5" floppy drive controller. With the use of the SMC-7086 Supercharger one could add a 5 MHz Intel 8086 16-bit CPU. The Supercharger also supported the addition of an Intel 8087 numeric data processor, which provided about 100 times
9030-402: The addition of a hole in the disk cartridge so that the drive could determine the appropriate density. However, the coercivity rating between the 3½-inch DD and HD formats, 665 and 720 oersteds , is much narrower than that for the 5 + 1 ⁄ 4 -inch format, 600 versus 300 oersteds, and consequently it was possible to format a 3½-inch DD disk as HD with no apparent problems. By the end of
9159-402: The ancestor of Borland Delphi , and Multiplan , the ancestor of Microsoft Excel , also debuted on CP/M before MS-DOS versions became available. VisiCalc , the first-ever spreadsheet program, was made available for CP/M. Another company, Sorcim , created its SuperCalc spreadsheet for CP/M, which would go on to become the market leader and de facto standard on CP/M. Supercalc would go on to be
9288-524: The application disks as needed, or to copy data from one floppy to another. In the early 1980s, “quad density” 96-track-per-inch drives appeared, increasing the capacity to 720 KB. RX50 was another proprietary format, used by Digital Equipment Corporation 's Rainbow 100 , DECmate II , and Professional 300 Series . It held 400 KB on a single side by using 96 tracks per inch and cramming 10 sectors per track. Floppy disks were supported on IBM's PC DOS and Microsoft's MS-DOS from their beginning on
9417-420: The basic concepts and mechanisms of early versions of MS-DOS resembled those of CP/M. Internals like file-handling data structures were identical, and both referred to disk drives with a letter ( A: , B: , etc.). MS-DOS's main innovation was its FAT file system. This similarity made it easier to port popular CP/M software like WordStar and dBase . However, CP/M's concept of separate user areas for files on
9546-531: The blocking and deblocking and the management of a disk buffer area is handled by model-specific code in the BIOS. Customization is required because hardware choices are not constrained by compatibility with any one popular standard. For example, some manufacturers designed built-in integrated video display systems, while others relied on separate computer terminals. Serial ports for printers and modems can use different types of UART chips, and port addresses are not fixed. Some machines use memory-mapped I/O instead of
9675-411: The coercivity of the media. The drives in the SMC-70 rotated the disk at 600 RPM (versus 300 RPM of contemporary drives), which greatly improved data transfer speeds. The original Sony disk (OM-D3310) also did not contain a spring-loaded auto shutter. The user was required to slide the protective metal sleeve on the disk to the side prior to inserting the disk into the drive. When removing the disk from
9804-452: The command line. These are referred to as "transient" programs. On completion, BDOS will reload the CCP if it has been overwritten by application programs — this allows transient programs a larger memory space. The commands themselves can sometimes be obscure. For instance, the command to duplicate files is named PIP (Peripheral-Interchange-Program), the name of the old DEC utility used for that purpose. The format of parameters given to
9933-470: The computer they were attached to in early days, so most machines of the era used cassette tape instead. In 1976, IBM introduced the 500 KB Double Sided Single Density (DSSD) format, and in 1977 IBM introduced the 1–1.2 MB Double Sided Double Density (DSDD) format. Other 8-inch floppy disk formats such as the Burroughs 1 MB unit failed to achieve any market presence. At the end of 1978
10062-600: The cost in the 1980s to add 5 + 1 ⁄ 4 -inch drives was still quite high, the Mitsumi Quick Disk was competing as a lower cost alternative packaged in several now obscure 8-bit computer systems. Another non-inclusive list of Quick Disk versions: QDM-01, QDD (Quick Disk Drive) on French Thomson micro-computers, in the Casio QD-7 drive, in a peripheral for the Sharp MZ-700 & MZ-800 system, in
10191-454: The disk. From version 1.1 or 1.2 onwards, changing a disk then trying to write to it before its directory is read will cause a fatal error to be signalled. This avoids overwriting the disk but requires a reboot and loss of the data to be stored on disk. The majority of the complexity in CP/M is isolated in the BDOS, and to a lesser extent, the CCP and transient commands. This meant that by porting
10320-418: The drive the metal shutter was manually slid to the right to protect the disk. The SSDD disks had an unformatted capacity of 437.5 KB (280 KB formatted) with 135 tracks per inch (70 tracks on the disk). The Sony disk drives had a transfer rate of 500 Kbps when used with DD media (250 Kbps with SD media). When the SMC-70 was released in 1982, the disk drives (OA-D30V) were capable of reading both
10449-414: The early 1980s, falling prices of computer hardware and technological advances led to the near-universal adoption of soft sector, double density disk formats. In addition, more compact half-height disk drives began to appear, as well as double-sided drives, although the cost of them meant that single-sided remained the standard for most home computers, and 80-track drives known as "quad density". For most of
10578-408: The eventual disappearance of the floppy disk as a standard feature of microcomputers , with a notable point in this conversion being the introduction of the floppy-less iMac in 1998. After 2000, floppy disks were increasingly rare and used primarily with older hardware, especially with legacy industrial and musical equipment. Sony manufactured its last new floppy disks in 2011. IBM's decision in
10707-726: The fabric lining in the previous rotations would be picked up by the disk and dragged past the read/write head. Although hard sectored disks were used on some early 8" drives prior to the IBM 33FD (May 1973), they were never widely used in 5¼-inch form, although North Star clung to the format until they went bankrupt in 1984. Tandon introduced a double-sided drive in 1978, doubling the capacity, and this new “double sided double density” (DSDD) format increased capacity to 360 KB. By 1979, there were also 77-track 5¼-inch drives available, mostly used in CP/M and other professional computers, and also found in some of Commodore's disk drive line. By
10836-494: The field. Other suppliers recognized the opportunity for a read/write FDD in applications such as key entry and data logging. Shugart, by then at Memorex shipped the Memorex 650 in 1972, the first commercially available read-write floppy disk drive. The 650 had a data capacity of 175 kB, with 50 tracks and 8 sectors per track. The Memorex disk was hard sectored, that is, it contained 8 sector holes (plus one index hole) at
10965-532: The following components: The only hardware system that CP/M, as sold by Digital Research, would support was the Intel 8080 Development System. Manufacturers of CP/M-compatible systems customized portions of the operating system for their own combination of installed memory, disk drives, and console devices. CP/M would also run on systems based on the Zilog Z80 processor since the Z80 was compatible with 8080 code. While
11094-501: The head and thus creates a single spiral track along the disk similar to a record groove." This has led some to compare it more to a "tape-stream" unit than typically what is thought of as a random-access disk drive. CP/M 2.2 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 / 85 -based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. CP/M
11223-466: The high price, due to the quite elaborate and complex case mechanisms. However, the final tip of the scale was when Sony in 1984 convinced Apple Computer to use the 3 + 1 ⁄ 2 -inch drives in the Macintosh 128K model, effectively making the 3 + 1 ⁄ 2 -inch drive a de facto standard. Another 3-inch (75 mm) format was Mitsumi 's Quick Disk format, originally released for
11352-409: The home market had been largely unsuccessful and most CP/M software was too expensive for home users. In 1986 the magazine stated that Kaypro had stopped production of 8-bit CP/M-based models to concentrate on sales of MS-DOS compatible systems, long after most other vendors had ceased production of new equipment and software for CP/M. CP/M rapidly lost market share as the microcomputing market moved to
11481-399: The job to David L. Noble, who tried to develop a new-style tape for the purpose, but without success. The project was reassigned to Donald L. Wartner, 23FD Disk Drive manager, and Herbert E. Thompson, 23FD Disk manager, along with design engineers Warren L. Dalziel, Jay Brent Nilson, and Ralph Flores; and that team developed the IBM 23FD Floppy Disk Drive System (code name Minnow). The disk is
11610-460: The keyboard and conveys results to the terminal. CP/M itself works with either a printing terminal or a video terminal. All CP/M commands have to be typed in on the command line . The console most often displays the A> prompt, to indicate the current default disk drive. When used with a video terminal, this is usually followed by a blinking cursor supplied by the terminal. The CCP awaits input from
11739-504: The late 1960s to use semiconductor memory as the writeable control store for future systems and control units created a requirement for an inexpensive and reliable read only device and associated medium to store and ship the control store's microprogram and at system power on to load the microprogram into the control store. The objective was a read only device costing less than $ 200 and medium costing less than $ 5. IBM San Jose's Direct Access Storage Product Manager, Alan Shugart , assigned
11868-546: The limited number of simple routines in the BIOS to a particular hardware platform, the entire OS would work. This significantly reduced the development time needed to support new machines, and was one of the main reasons for CP/M's widespread use. Today this sort of abstraction is common to most OSs (a hardware abstraction layer ), but at the time of CP/M's birth, OSs were typically intended to run on only one machine platform, and multilayer designs were considered unnecessary. The Console Command Processor, or CCP, accepts input from
11997-480: The lowest address of the BDOS was the Transient Program Area (TPA) available for CP/M application programs. Although all Z80 and 8080 processors could address 64 kilobytes of memory, the amount available for application programs could vary, depending on the design of the particular computer. Some computers used large parts of the address space for such things as BIOS ROMs, or video display memory. As
12126-434: The lowest level functions required by the operating system. These include reading or writing single characters to the system console and reading or writing a sector of data from the disk. The BDOS handles some of the buffering of data from the diskette, but before CP/M 3.0 it assumes a disk sector size fixed at 128 bytes, as used on single-density 8-inch floppy disks. Since most 5.25-inch disk formats use larger sectors,
12255-513: The magazine. Later versions of CP/M-86 made significant strides in performance and usability and were made compatible with MS-DOS. To reflect this compatibility the name was changed, and CP/M-86 became DOS Plus , which in turn became DR-DOS . ZCPR (the Z80 Command Processor Replacement) was introduced on 2 February 1982 as a drop-in replacement for the standard Digital Research console command processor (CCP) and
12384-523: The microcomputer industry. This computer platform was widely used in business through the late 1970s and into the mid-1980s. CP/M increased the market size for both hardware and software by greatly reducing the amount of programming required to port an application to a new manufacturer's computer. An important driver of software innovation was the advent of (comparatively) low-cost microcomputers running CP/M, as independent programmers and hackers bought them and shared their creations in user groups . CP/M
12513-729: The mid-1980s. A non-inclusive list includes: the Roland S-10 , Roland S-220 , and MKS100 samplers, the Korg SQD1, the Korg SQD8 MIDI sequencer , Akai 's 1985 model MD280 drive for the S-612 MIDI sampler, Akai's X7000 / S700 (rack version) and X3700, and the Yamaha MDF1 MIDI disk drive (intended for their DX7/21/100/TX7 synthesizers, RX11/21/21L drum machines, and QX1, QX21 and QX5 MIDI sequencers). As
12642-454: The middle and expanded to accommodate one, two, or three modules). Users were limited by the available power from the power supply (0.95A at 120V - 114 watts). Released expansion modules included: Third parties also released expansion modules for the system. Third party expansions included a joystick port and a hard drive controller . The external I/O expansion port supported a self-powered enclosure that held an additional five modules,
12771-434: The new location of the operating system in processor memory. This newly patched version can then be saved on a new disk, allowing application programs to access the additional memory made available by moving the system components. Once installed, the operating system (BIOS, BDOS and CCP) is stored in reserved areas at the beginning of any disk which can be used to boot the system. On start-up, the bootloader (usually contained in
12900-451: The operating system because "where there are literally thousands of programs written for it, it would be unwise not to take advantage of it", Xerox said. (Xerox included a Howard W. Sams CP/M manual as compensation for Digital Research's documentation, which InfoWorld described as atrocious, incomplete, incomprehensible, and poorly indexed. ) By 1984, Columbia University used the same source code to build Kermit binaries for more than
13029-469: The original IBM PC . With version 1.0 of PC DOS (1981), only single-sided 160 KB floppies were supported. Version 1.1 the next year saw support expand to double-sided 320 KB disks. Finally, in 1983, DOS 2.0 supported 9 sectors per track rather than 8, providing 180 KB on a (formatted) single-sided disk and 360 KB on a double-sided. In 1984, IBM introduced the 5¼ high density disk format with its new IBM AT machines. The 5¼ HD drive
13158-412: The outer diameter (outside data track 00) to synchronize the beginning of each data sector and the beginning of a track. Most early 8" disks were hard sectored, meaning that they had a fixed number of disk sectors (usually 8, 16, or 32), marked by physical holes punched around the disk hub, and the drive required the correct media type for its controller. IBM was developing a read/write FDD but did not see
13287-478: The performance of the 8086 alone for numeric processing. The Supercharger came with a base 256 KB of RAM that was upgradable to a total of 768K via 256K expansion boards. With the Supercharger the SMC-70 could run CP/M-86 . Though Sony announced the add-on would run MS-DOS 2.11 , the OS was never released outside of Sony. The SMC-70G contains additional hardware to support video production, contains
13416-499: The rights from Sinclair . The Oric-1 and Atmos systems from Oric International also used the 3-inch floppy drives, originally shipping with the Atmos, but also supported on the older Oric-1. Since all 3-inch media were double-sided in nature, single-sided drive owners were able to flip the disk over to use the other side. The sides were termed "A" and "B" and were completely independent, but single-sided drive units could only access
13545-513: The same disk was never ported to MS-DOS. Since MS-DOS had access to more memory (as few IBM PCs were sold with less than 64 KB of memory, while CP/M could run in 16 KB if necessary), more commands were built into the command-line shell , making MS-DOS somewhat faster and easier to use on floppy-based computers. Although one of the first peripherals for the IBM PC was a SoftCard-like expansion card that let it run 8-bit CP/M software, InfoWorld stated in 1984 that efforts to introduce CP/M to
13674-513: The standard operating system for 16-bit computers. In 1980 IBM approached Digital Research, at Bill Gates ' suggestion, to license a forthcoming version of CP/M for its new product, the IBM Personal Computer. Upon the failure to obtain a signed non-disclosure agreement , the talks failed, and IBM instead contracted with Microsoft to provide an operating system. The resulting product, MS-DOS , soon began outselling CP/M. Many of
13803-704: The system could display kanji characters. The system was expandable, allowing users to install a disk controller with one or two internal 3.5" disk drives (the base system did not include a floppy disk controller or disk drives). The floppy disk controller supported up to two additional 3.5" disk drives (for a total of four 3.5" drives). The base system included the following external ports: I/O expansion, black and white composite monitor, analog RGB monitor , parallel printer , light pen , cassette deck, number pad, headphone, and RS-232C . The system could further be expanded by plug-in modules. The SMC-70 had three externally available expansion ports (the unit split apart in
13932-616: The system was started. CP/M used the 7-bit ASCII set. The other 128 characters made possible by the 8-bit byte were not standardized. For example, one Kaypro used them for Greek characters, and Osborne machines used the 8th bit set to indicate an underlined character. WordStar used the 8th bit as an end-of-word marker. International CP/M systems most commonly used the ISO 646 norm for localized character sets, replacing certain ASCII characters with localized characters rather than adding them beyond
14061-475: The typical floppy disk price per piece was $ 5 (equivalent to $ 23 in 2023) to $ 8 (equivalent to $ 37 in 2023). Sales in 1978 for all types of drives and media were expected to reach $ 135 million for media and $ 875 million for drives. The 8" floppy disk drive interface standard as developed from the Shugart Associates drives involved a 50-pin interface and a spindle motor that ran directly from
14190-450: The upper side at one time. The disk format itself had no more capacity than the more popular (and cheaper) 5 + 1 ⁄ 4 -inch floppies. Each side of a double-density disk held 180 KB for a total of 360 KB per disk, and 720 KB for quad-density disks. Unlike 5 + 1 ⁄ 4 -inch or 3 + 1 ⁄ 2 -inch disks, the 3-inch disks were designed to be reversible and sported two independent write-protect switches. It
14319-411: The user. A CCP internal command, of the form drive letter followed by a colon, can be used to select the default drive. For example, typing B: and pressing enter at the command prompt changes the default drive to B, and the command prompt then becomes B> to indicate this change. CP/M's command-line interface was patterned after the operating systems from Digital Equipment , such as RT-11 for
14448-711: Was CP/M-68K for the Motorola 68000 . The original version of CP/M-68K in 1982 was written in Pascal/MT+68k , but it was ported to C later on. CP/M-68K, already running on the Motorola EXORmacs systems, was initially to be used in the Atari ST computer, but Atari decided to go with a newer disk operating system called GEMDOS . CP/M-68K was also used on the SORD M68 and M68MX computers. In 1982, there
14577-454: Was able to increase the license to tens of thousands of dollars. Under Kildall's direction, the development of CP/M 2.0 was mostly carried out by John Pierce in 1978. Kathryn Strutynski , a friend of Kildall from Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), became the fourth employee of Digital Research Inc. in early 1979. She started by debugging CP/M 2.0, and later became influential as key developer for CP/M 2.2 and CP/M Plus. Other early developers of
14706-466: Was also a port from CP/M-68K to the 16-bit Zilog Z8000 for the Olivetti M20 , written in C , named CP/M-8000 . These 16-bit versions of CP/M required application programs to be re-compiled for the new CPUs. Some programs written in assembly language could be automatically translated for a new processor. One tool for this was Digital Research's XLT86 , which translated .ASM source code for
14835-486: Was also more reliable thanks to its hard casing. 3-inch drives were also used on a number of exotic and obscure CP/M systems such as the Tatung Einstein and occasionally on MSX systems in some regions. Other computers to have used this format are the more unknown Gavilan Mobile Computer and Matsushita's National Mybrain 3000. The Yamaha MDR-1 also used 3-inch drives. The main problems with this format were
14964-411: Was criticized for needlessly diverging from industry standards. Throughout the early 1980s, the limitations of the 5 + 1 ⁄ 4 -inch format were starting to become clear. Originally designed to be smaller and more practical than the 8-inch format, the 5 + 1 ⁄ 4 -inch system was itself too large, and as the quality of the recording media grew, the same amount of data could be placed on
15093-399: Was designed by David K. Brown. It incorporated the bank switching memory management of MP/M in a single-user single-task operating system compatible with CP/M 2.2 applications. CP/M 3 could therefore use more than 64 KB of memory on an 8080 or Z80 processor. The system could be configured to support date stamping of files. The operating system distribution software also included
15222-467: Was developed and released. ZCPR 3.3 no longer supported the 8080 series of microprocessors, and added the most features of any upgrade in the ZCPR line. ZCPR 3.3 also included a full complement of utilities with considerably extended capabilities. While enthusiastically supported by the CP/M user base of the time, ZCPR alone was insufficient to slow the demise of CP/M. A minimal 8-bit CP/M system would contain
15351-410: Was essentially a scaled-down 8" drive, using the same rotation speed and bit rate, and it provided almost three times as much storage as the 360k format, but had compatibility issues with the older drives due to the narrower read/write head. Except for labeling, 5¼-inch high-density disks were externally identical to their double-density counterparts. This led to an odd situation wherein the drive itself
15480-512: Was eventually displaced by DOS following the 1981 introduction of the IBM PC . Gary Kildall originally developed CP/M during 1974, as an operating system to run on an Intel Intellec-8 development system, equipped with a Shugart Associates 8-inch floppy-disk drive interfaced via a custom floppy-disk controller . It was written in Kildall's own PL/M ( Programming Language for Microcomputers ). Various aspects of CP/M were influenced by
15609-426: Was initially written by a group of computer hobbyists who called themselves "The CCP Group". They were Frank Wancho, Keith Petersen (the archivist behind Simtel at the time), Ron Fowler, Charlie Strom, Bob Mathias, and Richard Conn. Richard was, in fact, the driving force in this group (all of whom maintained contact through email). ZCPR1 was released on a disk put out by SIG/M (Special Interest Group/Microcomputers),
15738-461: Was issued July 18, 1972 with named inventors Warren L. Dalziel, Jay. B. Nilson, and Donald L. Wartner. IBM introduced the diskette commercially in 1971. The new device first shipped in 1971 as the 23FD, the control store load device of the 2835 Storage Control Unit. and then as a standard part of most System 370 processing units and other IBM products. Internally IBM used another device, code named Mackerel , to write floppy disks for distribution to
15867-485: Was no need of hard sectored disks or even the index hole. Commodore also elected to use GCR recording (although a different variation not compatible with Apple's format) in their disk drive line. Tandy however used industry-standard FM on the TRS-80's disk drives, with stock Shugart SA-400s, and so had a mere 85k of storage. These early drives read only one side of the disk, leading to the popular budget approach of cutting
15996-562: Was probably the Amstrad PCW . In the UK, CP/M was also available on Research Machines educational computers (with the CP/M source code published as an educational resource), and for the BBC Micro when equipped with a Z80 co-processor. Furthermore, it was available for the Amstrad CPC series, the Commodore 128 , TRS-80 , and later models of the ZX Spectrum . CP/M 3 was also used on
16125-416: Was producing 4,000 drives a day, but their ascendancy was short-lived; the company's fortunes declined in the early 1980s. Part of this was due to their failure to develop a reliable 80-track drive, increasing competition, and the loss of several lucrative contracts—Apple by 1982 had switched to using cheaper Alps drive mechanisms in their computers, and IBM chose Tandon as their sole supplier of disk drives for
16254-465: Was the project manager for the evolving CP/M-86 line of operating systems. At this point, the original 8-bit CP/M became known by the retronym CP/M-80 to avoid confusion. CP/M-86 was expected to be the standard operating system of the new IBM PCs , but DRI and IBM were unable to negotiate development and licensing terms. IBM turned to Microsoft instead, and Microsoft delivered PC DOS based on 86-DOS . Although CP/M-86 became an option for
16383-541: Was then equipped with a custom Apple controller board and the faceplate stamped with the Apple logo. Steve Wozniak developed a recording scheme known as Group Coded Recording which allowed 140k of storage, well above the standard 90–113k, although the price of double density controllers fell not long after the Disk II's introduction. GCR recording used software means of detecting the track and sector being accessed, hence there
16512-409: Was unable to determine the density of the disk inserted except by reading the disk media to determine the format. It was therefore possible to use a high-density drive to format a double-density disk to the higher capacity. This usually appeared to work (sometimes reporting a small number of bad sectors)—at least for a time. The problem was that the high-density format was made possible by the creation of
16641-422: Was written for CP/M than for operating systems that ran on only one brand of hardware. One restriction on portability was that certain programs used the extended instruction set of the Z80 processor and would not operate on an 8080 or 8085 processor. Another was graphics routines, especially in games and graphics programs, which were generally machine-specific as they used direct hardware access for speed, bypassing
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