X-Trace-PostClient-IP: 24.84.219.150 From: paul c User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.5 (Windows/20040207) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Kildall's BIOS? Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 12 Message-ID: Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 22:03:18 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 64.59.144.74 X-Complaints-To: abuse@shaw.ca X-Trace: pd7tw2no 1107900198 64.59.144.74 (Tue, 08 Feb 2005 15:03:18 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 15:03:18 MST Organization: Shaw Residential Internet Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!snoopy.risq.qc.ca!headwall.stanford.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!pd7cy2so!shaw.ca!pd7tw2no.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:196887 well, the poor man is dead too, so it may not matter anymore, but i can't help but keep wondering, was he the originator of the PC's BIOS as we know it? i guess at some level of abstraction it is comparable to what many other computers had, such as the S/360 microcode which kept POO smaller than it could have been, but i think the decisions behind the PC's BIOS have affected a lot more people more directly than those of other computers. so i wonder if he just made a quick, clever move at the time or whether there was some more encompassing theory behind it. pc ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 18:13:56 -0600 Reply-To: "evan" From: "evan" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: Subject: Re: Kildall's BIOS? Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 19:14:13 -0500 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2527 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Response X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2527 Message-ID: Lines: 71 NNTP-Posting-Host: 68.37.166.120 X-Trace: sv3-Om8eDpfiYZoZ54WoJeChYswJY3xP5geX65rg1PDQLQmXmPLzwTvqgyqS0ZDQk52EwV0upa/KQzjB5JI!Gsu4c1d+xqPSRP8IZeGWezebkWykqlOBeayjY0gBhOPbvBR1abDf0ExpEMoDorsOM1u+xlW9Zn7A!jQ== X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.23 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!news.glorb.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:196906 You might be interested in an article I published on Feb. 2, 2004, in the Computer Collector Newsletter -- turns out that the inventor of the IBM PC's BIOS was the same guy who invented "Control-Alt-Delete". The article is pasted below. FYI, my newsletter's web site is http://news.computercollector.com. -- Evan Koblentz ------------------------------------------ It was either Ctrl-Alt-Del, or shorting two contacts with a screwdriver. David Bradley chose the former method for doing a warm reboot of IBM's original PC, and he did a lot more. "Early in '81, we were dealing with prototype software, prototype hardware, and as you would attempt to try things out it would hang up. We needed a faster way than turning the power off, waiting a moment, turning it back on. I stuffed a specific value in a location in memory and jumped to the reset vector," he explained, in an interview with Computer Collector today. But why'd he pick those three keys? "It's not as if somebody said 'we need you to pick out three keys to reboot the machine'," he explained. "Two of them had to be shift keys," since most of the IBM PC's memory was already spoken for. "I'm already tracking whether these four shift keys are up or down. So I picked Ctrl and Alt as the two newest, least used keys. Ctrl-Alt-Delete has a better mnemonic feel than Ctrl-Alt-Plus," he said. "The systems we had in the lab, it was easy to reset them, you just struck a screwdriver across a couple of contacts." For Bradley, now 55, it was hardly the highlight of his career. He graduated in 1971 from the University of Dayton (Ohio), the same year as Intel released the 4004 chip, and received his Ph.D. from Purdue in 1975, the year of MITS' Altair kit. "The first computer I ever used would have been a [IBM] 360," he said. He joined IBM in June 1975 and worked on the System/23 Datamaster in 1978 - IBM's first computer with a non-IBM processor. For the IBM PC, he wrote the entire BIOS. "I wrote virtually all of the code that's there with the exception of the cassette and the power-on self-test," he said. Had they known it'd last 20 years, some things would have been done differently. For example, "The interrupts on what's now called the ISA bus are positive-edge triggered and we should have made them negative. The consequence of that decision is it was impossible to share interrupts," he said. Bradley said he doesn't maintain a personal collection, but has owned various significant machines over the years. "For a while I had one of the original lab-built IBM PCs, but unfortunately in a move, I have no idea what happened to it. I may still have an old Timex Sinclair 1000 sitting around somewhere." ------------------------------------------ "paul c" wrote in message news:GGaOd.331527$6l.299507@pd7tw2no... > well, the poor man is dead too, so it may not matter anymore, but i can't > help but keep wondering, was he the originator of the PC's BIOS as we know > it? > > i guess at some level of abstraction it is comparable to what many other > computers had, such as the S/360 microcode which kept POO smaller than it > could have been, but i think the decisions behind the PC's BIOS have > affected a lot more people more directly than those of other computers. so > i wonder if he just made a quick, clever move at the time or whether there > was some more encompassing theory behind it. > > pc ###### From: "Hank Oredson" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: Subject: Re: Kildall's BIOS? Lines: 27 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2527 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2527 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Response Message-ID: Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 00:30:34 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 67.44.212.137 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net 1107909034 67.44.212.137 (Tue, 08 Feb 2005 16:30:34 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 16:30:34 PST Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newshub.sdsu.edu!elnk-nf2-pas!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net.POSTED!9a0f1d31!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:196909 From a thread in a.f.c it seems the BIOS may have originated from Intel ISIS, and a good deal of the concepts for CP/M came from RT-11. -- ... Hank http://home.earthlink.net/~horedson http://home.earthlink.net/~w0rli "paul c" wrote in message news:GGaOd.331527$6l.299507@pd7tw2no... > well, the poor man is dead too, so it may not matter anymore, but i can't > help but keep wondering, was he the originator of the PC's BIOS as we know > it? > > i guess at some level of abstraction it is comparable to what many other > computers had, such as the S/360 microcode which kept POO smaller than it > could have been, but i think the decisions behind the PC's BIOS have > affected a lot more people more directly than those of other computers. so > i wonder if he just made a quick, clever move at the time or whether there > was some more encompassing theory behind it. > > pc ###### From: "Tim Shoppa" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Kildall's BIOS? Date: 8 Feb 2005 16:39:51 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Lines: 11 Message-ID: <1107909591.517018.271870@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: 63.73.218.144 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-Trace: posting.google.com 1107909595 7450 127.0.0.1 (9 Feb 2005 00:39:55 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 00:39:55 +0000 (UTC) In-Reply-To: User-Agent: G2/0.2 Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com; posting-host=63.73.218.144; posting-account=mAyfxAwAAABWbrxnXxYpn9RczUJc3B8w Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!zen.net.uk!dedekind.zen.co.uk!fr.ip.ndsoftware.net!proxad.net!216.239.36.134.MISMATCH!postnews.google.com!f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:196910 > so i wonder if he just made a quick, clever move at the time or > whether there was some more encompassing theory behind it. One of the clever things about the BIOS, the IOBYTE, predated CP/M. It was on the Intel MDS system. I don't think Kildall invented it there. The BIOS interface certainly was the right level of abstraction at the time. Tim. ###### From: "Hank Oredson" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <1107909591.517018.271870@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: Kildall's BIOS? Lines: 24 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2527 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2527 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Original Message-ID: Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 03:14:47 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 67.44.212.137 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net 1107918887 67.44.212.137 (Tue, 08 Feb 2005 19:14:47 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 19:14:47 PST Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!newsfeed.freenet.de!216.196.110.149.MISMATCH!border2.nntp.ams.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!news.zanker.org!newshub.sdsu.edu!elnk-nf2-pas!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net.POSTED!9a0f1d31!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:196935 "Tim Shoppa" wrote in message news:1107909591.517018.271870@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com... >> so i wonder if he just made a quick, clever move at the time or >> whether there was some more encompassing theory behind it. > > One of the clever things about the BIOS, the IOBYTE, predated CP/M. It > was on the Intel MDS system. I don't think Kildall invented it there. MDS !! Thank you thank you. On another thread several of us have been attempting to remember the machine that ran ISIS. > The BIOS interface certainly was the right level of abstraction at the > time. -- ... Hank http://home.earthlink.net/~horedson http://home.earthlink.net/~w0rli ###### Message-ID: <420984DE.D40612FA@yahoo.com> From: CBFalconer Reply-To: cbfalconer@worldnet.att.net Organization: Ched Research http://cbfalconer.home.att.net X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Kildall's BIOS? References: <1107909591.517018.271870@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 29 Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 03:47:36 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.76.128.139 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 1107920856 12.76.128.139 (Wed, 09 Feb 2005 03:47:36 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 03:47:36 GMT Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!wn13feed!worldnet.att.net!bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:196939 Tim Shoppa wrote: > >> so i wonder if he just made a quick, clever move at the time or >> whether there was some more encompassing theory behind it. > > One of the clever things about the BIOS, the IOBYTE, predated CP/M. > It was on the Intel MDS system. I don't think Kildall invented it > there. > > The BIOS interface certainly was the right level of abstraction at > the time. I started our systems with an Intellec 80, the predecessor of the MDS. It came with a monitor. I rewrote that entirely for our own systems, but preserved most of the general outline, which included a jump vector to access things, and the iobyte. It took minimum modifications to fly with the first CP/M system we installed (1.4). I had to add disk read/write routines to the monitor, and then the CP/M bios was simply a set of jumps to the rom vector. I forget how I arranged for it to adapt to CP/M on power on. -- "If you want to post a followup via groups.google.com, don't use the broken "Reply" link at the bottom of the article. Click on "show options" at the top of the article, then click on the "Reply" at the bottom of the article headers." - Keith Thompson ###### From: "Tim Shoppa" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Kildall's BIOS? Date: 9 Feb 2005 05:21:51 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Lines: 21 Message-ID: <1107955311.106064.182210@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: 170.121.15.35 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-Trace: posting.google.com 1107955315 2984 127.0.0.1 (9 Feb 2005 13:21:55 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 13:21:55 +0000 (UTC) In-Reply-To: User-Agent: G2/0.2 Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com; posting-host=170.121.15.35; posting-account=mAyfxAwAAABWbrxnXxYpn9RczUJc3B8w Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!news-fra1.dfn.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!newsfeed.freenet.de!fr.ip.ndsoftware.net!proxad.net!216.239.36.134.MISMATCH!postnews.google.com!l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:197013 > BIOS may have originated from Intel ISIS Since Kildall did work for Intel around that time, I've often wondered whether he himself invented the IOBYTE or if someone else did it. I've never seen anyone claim or assign ownership to the concept. > a good deal of the concepts for CP/M came from RT-11 Not a carbon copy, that's for sure. My personal impression is that it's more like OS/8 (but only in general feel), but seeing as how RT-11 is obviously inspired by OS/8 it's probably 6 of one and a half dozen of the other. All of these OS's made different choices with respect to where different functions fell (driver vs utility vs monitor) but not radically different. CP/M's BIOS abstraction is a fundamental difference from early RT-11 and OS/8 where the drivers were usually sysgenned/assembled at the same time as the core OS. Tim. ###### From: "Tom Linden" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Kildall's BIOS? Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 05:53:26 -0800 Organization: Kednos Lines: 27 Message-ID: References: <1107909591.517018.271870@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; delsp=yes; charset=iso-8859-15 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: individual.net Yv133yKq7aZS+Ui+zX6DtwjvrmfNkf9myV6w+aRLMsU8mOno6R User-Agent: Opera M2/7.54 (Win32, build 3865) Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!newsfeed.freenet.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!npeer.de.kpn-eurorings.net!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:197021 On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 03:14:47 GMT, Hank Oredson wrote: > "Tim Shoppa" wrote in message > news:1107909591.517018.271870@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com... >>> so i wonder if he just made a quick, clever move at the time or >>> whether there was some more encompassing theory behind it. >> >> One of the clever things about the BIOS, the IOBYTE, predated CP/M. It >> was on the Intel MDS system. I don't think Kildall invented it there. > > MDS !! Thank you thank you. On another thread several > of us have been attempting to remember the machine that ran ISIS. Gary also wrote a compiler for that machine which was PLM-86, and I think parts of CP/M were implemented in that PL/I dialect. > >> The BIOS interface certainly was the right level of abstraction at the >> time. > > > -- Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/ ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Kildall's BIOS? References: <1107955311.106064.182210@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> Organization: Me, Myself and I From: Morten Reistad X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Originator: mrr@pilt.reistad.priv.no (Morten Reistad) Message-ID: Lines: 40 Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 14:30:03 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 193.217.159.243 X-Complaints-To: abuse@tele2.no X-Trace: juliett.dax.net 1107959403 193.217.159.243 (Wed, 09 Feb 2005 15:30:03 MET) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 15:30:03 MET Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.tele.dk!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!newsfeed1.swip.net!swipnet!dax.net!juliett.dax.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:197025 In article <1107955311.106064.182210@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>, Tim Shoppa wrote: >> BIOS may have originated from Intel ISIS > >Since Kildall did work for Intel around that time, I've often wondered >whether he himself invented the IOBYTE or if someone else did it. I've >never seen anyone claim or assign ownership to the concept. > >> a good deal of the concepts for CP/M came from RT-11 > >Not a carbon copy, that's for sure. My personal impression is that >it's more like OS/8 (but only in general feel), but seeing as how RT-11 >is obviously inspired by OS/8 it's probably 6 of one and a half dozen >of the other. All of these OS's made different choices with respect to >where different functions fell (driver vs utility vs monitor) but not >radically different. This is my impression as well. CP/M is not a copy of features from OS/8, Tops10, RT-11 or any of the similar operating systems, but a parallell implementation for the 8080; Different, but done in the same spirit; and with a distinct feel-preservation. Many of the design decisions seem to be taken with hardware in mind; as they are all very closely tied to the hardware they run on. MP/M shows even more feel from Tops10, even if some parts are radically different. Again, driven by hardware differences. MSDOS on the other hand has taken inspiration from Tops20, but only some superficial stuff. below the hood it is very similar to CP/M. >CP/M's BIOS abstraction is a fundamental difference from early RT-11 >and OS/8 where the drivers were usually sysgenned/assembled at the same >time as the core OS. This bios abstraction was very early, and seems to mostly have been lost on later hardware. -- mrr ###### From: "Tim Shoppa" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Kildall's BIOS? Date: 9 Feb 2005 07:20:58 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Lines: 36 Message-ID: <1107962458.368885.293600@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> References: <1107955311.106064.182210@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 170.121.15.35 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-Trace: posting.google.com 1107962462 14482 127.0.0.1 (9 Feb 2005 15:21:02 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 15:21:02 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: G2/0.2 Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com; posting-host=170.121.15.35; posting-account=mAyfxAwAAABWbrxnXxYpn9RczUJc3B8w Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!postnews.google.com!l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:197035 > Many of the design decisions > seem to be taken with hardware > in mind; as they are all > very closely tied to the > hardware they run on. CP/M's BIOS was radically different than what had been done for OS/8 and RT-11. At the time, you had to assemble your OS/8 or RT-11 monitor along with the device drivers you were going to use. This meant that porting/installing on a machine with different peripherals required a bootstrapping process involving at least a functional assembler/linker. CP/M, though, was designed to be installed with "stone knives and bear skins" as the available tools. All you need is a front panel and knowledge of your disk controller and some time to toggle in the first BIOS, and then you could be up and flying. This is the one factor that led to its success in the less-than-completely-homogenous environment that microcomputing had in the mid 70's. > This bios abstraction was very early, and > seems to mostly have been lost on > later hardware. I'm puzzled by this statement. The BIOS abstraction was refined between 1.3 and 1.4 and 2.0 and 2.2 to make it easier to use disks that weren't 8" SSSD, and these also helped with hard disk usage too. So the details of the abstraction were improved upon, but really the abstraction level changed not at all. Certainly users of later (turnkey) CP/M hardware never appreciated the toggling in of your first BIOS :-). In fact, I'm sure that 99% of them didn't even have access to their BIOS sources. I suspect that this is what you mean. But the BIOS was still there, just under the hood. Tim. ###### Message-ID: <420A3FC3.55808B8F@yahoo.com> From: CBFalconer Reply-To: cbfalconer@worldnet.att.net Organization: Ched Research http://cbfalconer.home.att.net X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Kildall's BIOS? References: <1107955311.106064.182210@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> <1107962458.368885.293600@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 50 Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 17:00:53 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.76.131.242 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 1107968453 12.76.131.242 (Wed, 09 Feb 2005 17:00:53 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 17:00:53 GMT Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!wn13feed!worldnet.att.net!bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:197052 Tim Shoppa wrote: > > > Many of the design decisions > > seem to be taken with hardware > > in mind; as they are all > > very closely tied to the > > hardware they run on. > > CP/M's BIOS was radically different than what had been done for OS/8 > and RT-11. At the time, you had to assemble your OS/8 or RT-11 monitor > along with the device drivers you were going to use. This meant that > porting/installing on a machine with different peripherals required a > bootstrapping process involving at least a functional assembler/linker. > > CP/M, though, was designed to be installed with "stone knives and bear > skins" as the available tools. All you need is a front panel and > knowledge of your disk controller and some time to toggle in the first > BIOS, and then you could be up and flying. This is the one factor that > led to its success in the less-than-completely-homogenous environment > that microcomputing had in the mid 70's. > > > This bios abstraction was very early, and > > seems to mostly have been lost on > > later hardware. > > I'm puzzled by this statement. The BIOS abstraction was refined > between 1.3 and 1.4 and 2.0 and 2.2 to make it easier to use disks that > weren't 8" SSSD, and these also helped with hard disk usage too. So > the details of the abstraction were improved upon, but really the > abstraction level changed not at all. > > Certainly users of later (turnkey) CP/M hardware never appreciated the > toggling in of your first BIOS :-). In fact, I'm sure that 99% of them > didn't even have access to their BIOS sources. I suspect that this is > what you mean. But the BIOS was still there, just under the hood. In fact the whole philosophy was carried over into the IBM-PC and clones, and survives today, with the major difference being the calling technique. With the rise of 32 bittery systems have taken to the old fashioned way of integrating their own hardware drivers and ignoring the bios for performance reasons. This was the same reason console i/o became IBM specific (performance) by going around the bios. -- "If you want to post a followup via groups.google.com, don't use the broken "Reply" link at the bottom of the article. Click on "show options" at the top of the article, then click on the "Reply" at the bottom of the article headers." - Keith Thompson ###### From: Rich Alderson Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Kildall's BIOS? Date: 09 Feb 2005 14:08:03 -0500 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC Lines: 13 Sender: alderson+news@panix5.panix.com Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: panix5.panix.com X-Trace: reader2.panix.com 1107976083 26798 166.84.1.5 (9 Feb 2005 19:08:03 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@panix.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 19:08:03 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 21.3 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newshub.sdsu.edu!headwall.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!panix!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:197058 "Hank Oredson" writes: > From a thread in a.f.c it seems the BIOS may have originated from Intel ISIS, > and a good deal of the concepts for CP/M came from RT-11. I believe that it was inspired by DOS-11, which I seem to remember learning from a Digital Research publication at some point. -- Rich Alderson | /"\ ASCII ribbon | news@alderson.users.panix.com | \ / campaign against | "You get what anybody gets. You get a lifetime." | x HTML mail and | --Death, of the Endless | / \ postings | ###### From: prep@prep.synonet.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Kildall's BIOS? Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 21:20:28 +0800 Organization: none Lines: 21 Message-ID: <87oeerjkrn.fsf@prep.synonet.com> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: grimiore.conceptual.net.au Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: nnrp.waia.asn.au 1108132160 12467 203.190.192.5 (11 Feb 2005 14:29:20 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@nnrp.waia.asn.au NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 14:29:20 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Gnus/5.1006 (Gnus v5.10.6) Emacs/21.3 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:kOKGL9FEp5bJhY/3L6b6OmbPjqU= Cache-Post-Path: grimiore.conceptual.net.au!unknown@203-190-195-233.dial.usertools.net X-Cache: nntpcache 2.3.3 (see http://www.nntpcache.org/) Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.belwue.de!feed.news.tiscali.de!tiscali!newsfeed1.ip.tiscali.net!news.moat.net!nntp.waia.asn.au!198.32.212.248.MISMATCH!nnrp.waia.asn.au!127.0.0.1!nobody Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:197347 Rich Alderson writes: > "Hank Oredson" writes: >> From a thread in a.f.c it seems the BIOS may have originated from >> Intel ISIS, and a good deal of the concepts for CP/M came from >> RT-11. > I believe that it was inspired by DOS-11, which I seem to remember > learning from a Digital Research publication at some point. Possible, but Gary had an 11/45 running RT-11 in his bedroom. On that, CP/M was forged. -- Paul Repacholi 1 Crescent Rd., +61 (08) 9257-1001 Kalamunda. West Australia 6076 comp.os.vms,- The Older, Grumpier Slashdot Raw, Cooked or Well-done, it's all half baked. EPIC, The Architecture of the future, always has been, always will be. ###### From: Eric Sosman Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Kildall's BIOS? Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 11:02:59 -0500 Organization: Sun Microsystems Corporation Lines: 26 Message-ID: References: <87oeerjkrn.fsf@prep.synonet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: tardis.east.sun.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news1brm.Central.Sun.COM 1108137780 5302 129.148.168.113 (11 Feb 2005 16:03:00 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news1brm.central.sun.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 16:03:00 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; SunOS sun4u; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20041214 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en In-Reply-To: <87oeerjkrn.fsf@prep.synonet.com> Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!209.11.36.156.MISMATCH!nntp-server.pubsub.com!news.glorb.com!newsfeed-east.nntpserver.com!nntpserver.com!newsfeed1.sea.pnap.net!newsfeed.pnap.net!brmea-news-1.sun.com!news1brm.central.sun.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:197370 prep@prep.synonet.com wrote: > Rich Alderson writes: > > >>"Hank Oredson" writes: > > >>>From a thread in a.f.c it seems the BIOS may have originated from >>>Intel ISIS, and a good deal of the concepts for CP/M came from >>>RT-11. > > >>I believe that it was inspired by DOS-11, which I seem to remember >>learning from a Digital Research publication at some point. > > > Possible, but Gary had an 11/45 running RT-11 in his bedroom. On that, > CP/M was forged. Forged? I always thought it was genuine ... -- Eric.Sosman@sun.com