4 ms·

I knew about MSX-DOS but never realized it was CP/M compatible at the binary API level.

BirAdam 3y ago
I have some more history of it here: https://www.abortretry.fail/p/disk-operating-systems https://www.abortretry.fail/p/disk-operating-systems Effectively, MS-DOS was a port of CP/M to 8086 that got some upgrades overtime. When it was ported to MSX, Tim Paterson used an ASM translator he wrote, and the CP/M compatibility was a natural result.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  In addition, books like this one describe some of those CP/M APIs. Advanced Assembly Language https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31577445355&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-tile1&searchurl=an%3Dpeter%2Bnorton%2Bsteven%2Bholzner%26ds%3D10%26sortby%3D17%26tn%3Dadvanced%2Bassembly%2Blanguage https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=3157744535...
- lproven 3y ago
  That's a great history. I did spot some small errors: > Tim Paterson at Seattle Computer Products had developed a reverse engineered CP/M for 8086 S-100 bus microcomputers, DOS-86. You have the name backwards. It was 86-DOS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/86-DOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/86-DOS > Lineo eventually sold to DeviceLogistics in 2002. DeviceLogics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeviceLogics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeviceLogics > The last versions were DR-DOS 8.1 and EDR-DOS 7.01.08 WIP 2011. Hang on. This is conflating 2 entirely separate lines of development. DrDos Inc continued work and released DR-DOS 8 and 8.1. However, it was shown that they used code from FreeDOS without giving credit and without releasing the source. The product was withdrawn. Earlier, in 1997, Caldera released some of the DR-DOS 7.01 source code under a permissive but not FOSS license: https://www.zx.net.nz/netware/drdos/caldera.shtml https://www.zx.net.nz/netware/drdos/caldera.shtml It changed its mind and withdrew it again as of 7.02, which was once again closed source. (Apparently the company found some old Novell backup tapes and was able to re-incorporate some Novell bug fixes which had been lost.) Udo Kuhnt picked up this open source, and continued enhancing it. That is where Enhanced DR-DOS comes from. It's entirely separate and parallel to DrDos Inc's work on v8. > From Lineo forward it would appear that Udo Kuhnt was the lead developer/manager. He was an independent FOSS developer working on the open source code for the DR kernel 7.01. He had nothing to do with Lineo at all. (AFAIK!)
  - BirAdam 3y ago
    Thank you. Updated the article with your corrections.
actionfromafar 3y ago
My MSX came with both CP/M and MSX/DOS and as I recall CP/M programs could not be run in MSX/DOS. This is also somewhat supported by the Wikipedia article: “To be able to run (slightly modified) CP/M software Microsoft decided to implement functionality”
- andrewshadura 3y ago
  Could it be due to a different disk format? MSX DOS is supposed to be able to run binaries in its own filesystem (FAT12), but I reckon it probably didn't support CP/M filesystems (which weren't unified really, each machine often had its own variety).

I have some more history of it here: https://www.abortretry.fail/p/disk-operating-systems https://www.abortretry.fail/p/disk-operating-systems Effectively, MS-DOS was a port of CP/M to 8086 that got some upgrades overtime. When it was ported to MSX, Tim Paterson used an ASM translator he wrote, and the CP/M compatibility was a natural result.

pjmlp 3y ago
In addition, books like this one describe some of those CP/M APIs. Advanced Assembly Language https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31577445355&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-tile1&searchurl=an%3Dpeter%2Bnorton%2Bsteven%2Bholzner%26ds%3D10%26sortby%3D17%26tn%3Dadvanced%2Bassembly%2Blanguage https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=3157744535...
lproven 3y ago
That's a great history. I did spot some small errors: > Tim Paterson at Seattle Computer Products had developed a reverse engineered CP/M for 8086 S-100 bus microcomputers, DOS-86. You have the name backwards. It was 86-DOS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/86-DOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/86-DOS > Lineo eventually sold to DeviceLogistics in 2002. DeviceLogics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeviceLogics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeviceLogics > The last versions were DR-DOS 8.1 and EDR-DOS 7.01.08 WIP 2011. Hang on. This is conflating 2 entirely separate lines of development. DrDos Inc continued work and released DR-DOS 8 and 8.1. However, it was shown that they used code from FreeDOS without giving credit and without releasing the source. The product was withdrawn. Earlier, in 1997, Caldera released some of the DR-DOS 7.01 source code under a permissive but not FOSS license: https://www.zx.net.nz/netware/drdos/caldera.shtml https://www.zx.net.nz/netware/drdos/caldera.shtml It changed its mind and withdrew it again as of 7.02, which was once again closed source. (Apparently the company found some old Novell backup tapes and was able to re-incorporate some Novell bug fixes which had been lost.) Udo Kuhnt picked up this open source, and continued enhancing it. That is where Enhanced DR-DOS comes from. It's entirely separate and parallel to DrDos Inc's work on v8. > From Lineo forward it would appear that Udo Kuhnt was the lead developer/manager. He was an independent FOSS developer working on the open source code for the DR kernel 7.01. He had nothing to do with Lineo at all. (AFAIK!)
- BirAdam 3y ago
  Thank you. Updated the article with your corrections.

actionfromafar 3y ago

My MSX came with both CP/M and MSX/DOS and as I recall CP/M programs could not be run in MSX/DOS. This is also somewhat supported by the Wikipedia article: “To be able to run (slightly modified) CP/M software Microsoft decided to implement functionality”

andrewshadura 3y ago
Could it be due to a different disk format? MSX DOS is supposed to be able to run binaries in its own filesystem (FAT12), but I reckon it probably didn't support CP/M filesystems (which weren't unified really, each machine often had its own variety).