5 ms·

> so would have had a bigger software library available to it. The SMC-70 could run CP/M software. CP/M was the MS-DOS of its time.

by rbanffy 1mo ago

kalleboo 1mo ago
The video covers how CP/Ms big problem was that the disk formats weren't the same between machines, doubly true for this Sony which used new 3.5" disks. So all the existing CP/M software had to be specifically re-released for this machine, which caused a chicken and egg problem (who is going to release software for a machine nobody is buying because there is no software for it) The MS-DOS world solved the problem by everyone just cloning the IBM hardware down to the disk format.
- rbanffy 1mo ago
  This is, indeed, an issue. IIRC, the only interchangeable disk format with CP/M was with 8 inch media. Unless the disks had copy protection, you could copy them over a serial link. I did that a lot between my Apple II and other CP/M machines.
EvanAnderson 1mo ago
Some would argue MS-DOS was the CP/M of its time. >smile<
- pjmlp 1mo ago
  At least it had the FCB, some interrupts and COM executable format from CP/M. :)
pjmlp 1mo ago
Kind of, because while MS-DOS was compatible between PCs, CP/M depended pretty much on what 8 bit machine you had, and like UNIX required compilation from source for proper compatibility. FTL Modula-2 for example, had several low level portability modules depending on which CP/M machine you were actually using.
- rbanffy 1mo ago
  MS-DOS was “mostly” compatible across different machines but there were non-PC MS-DOS machines with different disk controllers and media recording formats, giving them better capacity or performance. Only machines that followed the IBM PC recording formats would be media-interchangeable. Since the PC used off-the-shelf components, it was tempting to be compatible, but some cursed machines tried to be different. I’m not sure how compatible are floppies from the Victor 9000 or Epson QX-10, but I know the Sanyo 550 (?) and the Mindset, which were not quite PC-compatibles could interchange media with a PC.
Lio 1mo ago
That's true but all the cool SMC-70 features, like the graphics modes, were custom to it. CP/M programs written for other machines couldn't really make use of any of that unless they were rewritten specifically for the SMC-70. If you just wanted the CP/M text compatibility and not the extended features you could buy a machine capable of that for much, much less. As Kalleboo points out, if you wanted to buy off the shelf CP/M software you'd probably have to buy an external 5 1/4" disk drive too.
- rbanffy 1mo ago
  Digital Research had GSX, which provided a rich set of graphics primitives. Sony would need to offer a device driver or, alternatively, make the console/terminal emulate a graphics terminal such as the DEC VT-240 (and GSX would use a Tek4014 or ReGIS backend). A lot of CP/M machines had graphics-capable built-in displays. Unfortunately, publishing software in machine-native media was a real chore back then, a bit like in the 1990's, where we had a "Unix version of NetScape" which was actually 27 slightly different versions for 27 different operating systems and binary architectures.

> so would have had a bigger software library available to it. The SMC-70 could run CP/M software. CP/M was the MS-DOS of its time.

by rbanffy 1mo ago

> so would have had a bigger software library available to it. The SMC-70 could run CP/M software. CP/M was the MS-DOS of its time.

kalleboo 1mo ago

The video covers how CP/Ms big problem was that the disk formats weren't the same between machines, doubly true for this Sony which used new 3.5" disks. So all the existing CP/M software had to be specifically re-released for this machine, which caused a chicken and egg problem (who is going to release software for a machine nobody is buying because there is no software for it) The MS-DOS world solved the problem by everyone just cloning the IBM hardware down to the disk format.

rbanffy 1mo ago
This is, indeed, an issue. IIRC, the only interchangeable disk format with CP/M was with 8 inch media. Unless the disks had copy protection, you could copy them over a serial link. I did that a lot between my Apple II and other CP/M machines.

EvanAnderson 1mo ago

Some would argue MS-DOS was the CP/M of its time. >smile<

pjmlp 1mo ago
At least it had the FCB, some interrupts and COM executable format from CP/M. :)

pjmlp 1mo ago

Kind of, because while MS-DOS was compatible between PCs, CP/M depended pretty much on what 8 bit machine you had, and like UNIX required compilation from source for proper compatibility. FTL Modula-2 for example, had several low level portability modules depending on which CP/M machine you were actually using.

rbanffy 1mo ago
MS-DOS was “mostly” compatible across different machines but there were non-PC MS-DOS machines with different disk controllers and media recording formats, giving them better capacity or performance. Only machines that followed the IBM PC recording formats would be media-interchangeable. Since the PC used off-the-shelf components, it was tempting to be compatible, but some cursed machines tried to be different. I’m not sure how compatible are floppies from the Victor 9000 or Epson QX-10, but I know the Sanyo 550 (?) and the Mindset, which were not quite PC-compatibles could interchange media with a PC.

Lio 1mo ago

That's true but all the cool SMC-70 features, like the graphics modes, were custom to it. CP/M programs written for other machines couldn't really make use of any of that unless they were rewritten specifically for the SMC-70. If you just wanted the CP/M text compatibility and not the extended features you could buy a machine capable of that for much, much less. As Kalleboo points out, if you wanted to buy off the shelf CP/M software you'd probably have to buy an external 5 1/4" disk drive too.

rbanffy 1mo ago
Digital Research had GSX, which provided a rich set of graphics primitives. Sony would need to offer a device driver or, alternatively, make the console/terminal emulate a graphics terminal such as the DEC VT-240 (and GSX would use a Tek4014 or ReGIS backend). A lot of CP/M machines had graphics-capable built-in displays. Unfortunately, publishing software in machine-native media was a real chore back then, a bit like in the 1990's, where we had a "Unix version of NetScape" which was actually 27 slightly different versions for 27 different operating systems and binary architectures.