CP/M

CP/M is an operating system running on different computers with Intel 8080 and compatible CPUs. It was the most popular operating system for micro computers, before the 16 bit age started successfully with the IBM PC and MS-DOS. Most computer systems running CP/M were based on a Z80 CPU.

It was developed by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. as a private project from 1974 on, named Control Program/Monitor. When it became commercial software in November 1977 it was renamed to Control Program for Microcomputers.

CP/M had a machine independent part (implemented by Digital Research) and a machine dependent part implemented by the vendor (Amstrad).

CP/M was shipped with the disk models of the Amstrad CPC and the DDI-1 disc drive on one or two System Disks.

For the DDI-1 and CPC664 there was a single disc with CP/M 2.2 on it. For CPC6128 and later there were two discs with CP/M 2.2 on one disc and CP/M+ on the other.

Vortex also shipped their CP/M with their disc drives which used their memory expansion and Dobbertin shipped CP/M to be used with their hard disk.

Graduate Software provided a version of CP/M+ on ROM.

Various utilities also patched CP/M to use extended disc formats and to support Amstrad peripherals.

CP/M versions relating to the Amstrad CPC

• CP/M 2.2
• CP/M 3.0 also called CP/M Plus

MicroDOS

MicroDOS (Microcomputer Disc Operating System) is a CP/M clone made in East Germany (GDR) for computers of the brand Kleincomputer (KC). It was available for the KC Compact. Unfortunately it is not 100% compatible with CP/M.

Links

• CP/M Archive site maintained by Gaby

Videos

These four introduction videos show the basic usage and programming environment of CP/M on a modern Altair 8800 simulator connected to a terminal emulator ("Vince Briel PockeTerm") via serial port. (These videos are made by the person who sells these Altair simulators, so you can ignore the small sales pitch at the end of each video.)

CP/M Introduction

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CP/M Programming Environment

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Changing CP/M's RAM Size

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CP/M Application Demos

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