Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!think!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!bbn!oberon!eve.usc.edu!mlinar From: mlinar@eve.usc.edu (Mitch Mlinar) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: IBM bashing / OSF / SVID / added pennies Message-ID: <11646@oberon.USC.EDU> Date: 17 Aug 88 04:48:07 GMT References: <16792@adm.ARPA> <1260@ficc.UUCP> <3660@bsu-cs.UUCP> Sender: news@oberon.USC.EDU Reply-To: mlinar@eve.usc.edu (Mitch Mlinar) Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Lines: 61 In article <3660@bsu-cs.UUCP> dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) writes: > >CP/M had no expandability. With MS-DOS you *began* with 64 K, >remember? With CP/M, you finished there. > Unless you had banked memory CP/M. However, it is still true that any given task could only be performed in 64k. My "typical" CP/M setup these days has 1M of RAM, multitasking, and lots of RAM disk at 10MHz of 64180 power. It blows the doors the normal PC and fights for speed with the original AT. Although it is clearly not as powerful as an AT by most measures, as matched to an IBM PC, there are only two differences . Graphics was *the* key, no doubt about it. Extra usable program memory certainly helped, but it also made some programs turn into RAM pigs. Given the inefficiency of IBM compilers as compared to the tight code you *had* to have for CP/M, the ratio is somewhere between 2:1 or 3:1 in code size. The same C program (compiled on a number of compilers like MS-DOS, Lattice, and Power C) by myself [to prove a point in Feb of this year], averaged 2.8x larger on the IBM than CP/M. Yes, the code should be bigger since the average instruction length is longer, but not by that much. Only the data structures are the same size. Of course, if you throw in lots of floating pt, and/or you happen to have a co-processor, this ratio drops slightly. > >And then, when Lotus 1-2-3 came out, and it worked only on an IBM PC >using MS-DOS, the final blow had been struck against CP/M. > which is why MicroPro is selling WordStar4 for CP/M (released just this past year) and MicroSoft was considering re-releasing some of their 8-bit stuff!?!!? In fact, I have seen my software sales INCREASE on CP/M over the past 18 months. I would *hate* to see what my sales base would be if CP/M was not dead as you claimed .... :-) :-) I am now going to twist this around on you: IBM DOS is dead. I think that CP/M and early IBM DOSes are converging on the same obsolete boat. With (a) UN*X, (b) OS/2, (c) no future versions of DOS, (d) no future machines with anything less than a 80286 and (e) major vendors jumping to the newer OSes, IBM DOS must be dead [paraphrased from 3 computer journals during the past months]; this sounds awful familiar to me. And, just like CP/M, the death of IBM DOS will be announced every year for the next decade because it refuses to *really* die. Companies are moving away from IBM-PC 8088 for 386/Suns/MacIIs, but a large chuck of home computers will still be around. Now and ten years from now. The "appliance" users *always* move on as they can afford it. But if you have a computer at home, you are more than likely a hobbyist without the bank in your hip pocket to buy the latest machine that comes along every couple of years. I have been through it already with CP/M; IBM-PC friends who are sweating OS/2s impact on the little 8088 machine need not worry. IBM DOS will not vaporize overnight either. As long as the computer meets your needs, whatever those are, and there are others who feel the same, it is not obsolete. -Mitch