Re: Which Is Better CP/M or 6502?

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

Bryan Parkoff <BParkoff@satx.rr.com> wrote:

>     Please state your opinion what you think is better to do with the CP/M
> and/or 6502 microprocessor.  Is CP/M much like Intel CPU?

That is like asking whether a 6502 or ProDOS is better.

CP/M is an operating system.

6502 is a microprocessor.

CP/M originally ran on the Intel 8080 processor, including derivatives
like the 8085 and Zilog Z80.  On the Apple II, I believe all of the CP/M
implementations used a Z80.

The 8080 and Z80 are both 8-bit processors with a 64K address space,
similar to the 6502.

There was also an Intel 8086/8088 port of CP/M, called CP/M-86.

The 8088 is the original CPU used in the IBM PC.  The 8086 is identical
to the 8088 except that the '86 has a 16-bit data bus, while the '88 has
an 8-bit data bus.

The 8080 and 8086 are not binary compatible.  The 8086 is much more
powerful than the 8080, supporting up to 1M address space and wider
range of 16-bit calculations.

MS-DOS/PC-DOS 1.0 was derived by Microsoft from an operating system
known as QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System).  QDOS was originally
designed as a workalike of CP/M for the 8086 processor, using almost
identical system calls for file I/O operations, but with a different
file system.  I think it predated CP/M-86.  MS-DOS 1.0 doesn't have any
signficant advantages over CP/M, but version 2.0 introduced subdirectory
support and a more advanced file I/O system call interface, which made
it much better.

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz