Thomas Mueller wrote:
>
> Anybody have experience with CP/M (just
> curiosity on my part, I never saw CP/M in action)?
Like running under DOS, only cruder. Programs were VERY plain vanilla.
Since every CP/M computer had different standards, you could only get CP/M
to work on a lowest common denominator basis. No sound, no color, little in
the way of graphics, etc. (Yes, that is a generalization.)
Even then, unless the program had been specifically pre-configured for your
type of computer, installing CP/M software involved far more technical
questions than the average user could really answer. For instance, you
could run CP/M on the Commodore 128. When you hit the question about your
terminal type, you usually had to answer "Lear-Sigler ADM-3A". The 128 had
been designed to emulate that type (I guess it was popular), but most folks
just weren't going to know that.
Add in the fact that floppy disk formats were different for different
computers (yes, there was software designed to help you read other formats,
but no, it didn't always get you where you wanted to be), and you can see
why the business world was glad for IBM to get involved and set a standard
for the next generation of computers. Another solution might have been
rallying around the MX Standard (a set of common hardware standards for Z-80
8-bit based machines, on which CP/M ran), but the 16-bit IBM PC foreclosed
that.
