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CP/M

CP/M is an operating system created by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. originally for Intel 8080/8085 based microcomputers. As well as the articles here there is also a CP/M Playlist on the TechTinkering YouTube Channel.


Modula-2 Compilers on CP/M

Modula-2 is a great language in general and is a good choice for programming on CP/M. There are three good compilers available for CP/M which all require a Z80 processor and we'll compare each in turn...   Read More

XCCP: A Shell Extension for CP/M

XCCP describes itself as an Extended Console Command Processor for CP/M. It supports the 8080 and v1.0 was released by Anton R. Fleig in 1984. Like EPEX, XCCP doesn't require installing so we can begi...   Read More

EPEX: An Environment Extension for CP/M

Epex is an evironment extension for CP/M. It stands for Environmental Processing EXecutive, and v1.1 was released by James H. Whorton in 1986. It can make using CP/M much more comfortable at the cost...   Read More

File Comparison Utilities on CP/M

There are many utilities available for CP/M to compare the differences between files and to distribute those differences. All the utilities in this article can be found on the Walnut Creek CD. Binary ...   Read More

Breakout Style Games on CP/M

Breakout style video games were pretty popular at one time both at Arcades and on home computers. The games are based on a simple concept where you have to destroy a group of 'bricks' at the top of t...   Read More

Hamurabi and Similar Games on CP/M

Hamurabi is probably the best known land and resource management game on CP/M. However, there are a few other similar text-based games that sought to extend the concept such as Dukedom and Kingdom. T...   Read More

Advanced Use of .LBR files on CP/M

Lots of utilities make use of .LBR (Library) files to provide extra facilities such as the ability to run commands from archives or mount them as if they were drives. This article shows some more adva...   Read More

Working with .LBR files on CP/M

The .LBR (Library) file format was the most common form of multi-file archive on personal computers at one time. It was created by Gary P. Novosielski in 1982 for use by his LU (Library Utility) progr...   Read More

Re-execute Programs in Memory on CP/M

After a transient program terminates on CP/M it's often possible to re-execute it in memory without having to reload it from disk. This is a great little trick if using slow disks as it's much quicke...   Read More

I Love ED on CP/M

I love ED on CP/M. It's often derided but I think it's just misunderstood and with a little practise its true value can shine through. It's elegant, easy to learn and only has about 25 commands but t...   Read More

The Pilot Programming Language on CP/M

Pilot was created by John A. Starkweather in the early 1960s as a programming language for Computer Assisted Instruction. It has often been compared to Logo because of its use with children. However,...   Read More

Image Viewers on CP/M

CP/M is by default a text-only affair. However, many of the machines that can run CP/M have hardware that would allow them to display graphics. As BBSing started to grow so too did the distribution o...   Read More

The Mouse Programming Language on CP/M

Mouse is an interpreted stack orientated language designed by Peter Grogono around 1975. It was designed to be a small but powerful language for microcomputers, similar to Forth, but much simpler. On...   Read More

DABAR: A Hebrew Vocabulary Drill System on CP/M

I recently came across an interesting program called DABAR to drill Hebrew vocabulary. The program works in a similar way to flash cards, by displaying a word in Hebrew and then asking for its English...   Read More

Backgammon: The Peelgrunt Game of Gammon IV on CP/M

My favourite traditional board game is Backgammon and the best version I have found for CP/M is The Peelgrunt Game of Gammon IV, v2.0 released 1st April 1986 by David C. Oshel. It is available on the ...   Read More

DIR Alternatives on CP/M

There are lots of great alternatives to the standard CP/M DIR command, which add extra functionality and combine features that normally have to be accessed through other CP/M commands such as STAT or S...   Read More

Mission: Impossible on CP/M

Mission: Impossible simulates a foreign espionage mission based on the TV series. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to recover the objects or person taken by enemy agents and hidden in ...   Read More

Hunt the Wumpus on CP/M

Hunt The Wumpus was created by Gregory Yob in 1973 after seeing some of the hide and seek style games distributed by the People's Computer Company. Games such as Hurkle, Snark and Mugwump were all ba...   Read More

CP/M Standard Console Control Characters

CP/M helped provide a consistent console interface for the user by supporting a number of standard control characters through the BDOS console functions. This was great for the user and made life much...   Read More

Transferring Files to and from CP/M .D71 Disk Images Using ctools

Using Vice to emulate a Commodore 128 running CP/M works very well, but it isn't easy to get CP/M files directly onto and off a .D64/.D71 disk image. The easiest way to do this under Linux is to use c...   Read More

Emulating a CP/M System With z80pack

z80pack is great for creating an emulated CP/M system. It can either be used to create a general CP/M system or can emulate a specific system such as an IMSAI or ALTAIR including a graphical front-pan...   Read More

Instrument Flight Simulator on CP/M

Instrument Flight Simulator is a text mode flight simulator for CP/M which uses standard ASCII characters to display an instrument panel for the plane. The aim of the game is to land the aircraft safe...   Read More

Interactive File Managers on CP/M

CP/M has a number of interactive file managers that can be used to make it easier to handle common file operations rather than using the command line driven commands supplied with CP/M such as: DIR, ER...   Read More

Felix Animation System on CP/M

In 1979 the University of Tennessee/Knoxville's Computer Science Department released Felix v2.1 for CP/M, which is available on the Walnut Creek CD. It aimed to provide a basis for computer animation ...   Read More

Compression and Archiving on CP/M

CP/M has the ability to handle lots of different compression and archive formats which was important due to the limited capacity of floppy disks and the cost of downloading/uploading files on BBS's. T...   Read More

Text Viewers on CP/M

There are lots of text viewers on CP/M and I want to show the three that I use most often. I have recently been going through the Walnut Creek CD to see if I can find any better text viewers, but afte...   Read More

Write Hand Man - CP/M's Answer to Sidekick

CP/M is a single tasking operating system and having grown-up with single tasking systems this has never really been a problem for me. There is style of program that would make my life easier, however...   Read More

If Only Borland Had Stuck With Turbo Modula-2 For CP/M

I have written previously about why Turbo Pascal is a Great Choice For Programming Under CP/M and now it is time to talk about what could have been. You probably haven't heard of Turbo Modula-2 for CP...   Read More

Turbo Pascal: A Great Choice For Programming Under CP/M

CP/M was blessed with many programming languages, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. I think that Turbo Pascal stands out from these and I'm not alone. When Turbo Pascal was released in 19...   Read More

Installing the HI-TECH Z80 C Compiler for CP/M

My language of choice is C and I am currently getting more involved with the CP/M operating system. I have therefore decided that it would be nice to have a C compiler working under CP/M. There are a...   Read More

Installing ZDE 1.6, a programmers editor for CP/M

To do any serious programming under CP/M, the first thing you need is a good programmers editor. There aren't many in the archives, but I have tried most of them and found ZDE to be the best. It is s...   Read More

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