Though the concept was a success, and though for a year or so I ran as many as 4 users on a TRS 80 with 4 of the 8 inch floppy drives, the marketing was not so successful.
MSDOS and CP/M 86 were very similar in many respects, but MSDOS had some missing parts.
Early on Digital Research attempted to market their CP/M 86 API (which was more conducive to multi tasking that the MSDOS API), but it was a market failure.
Myths About Microsoft(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-01)
Some of these are told about M$, and some by it.
Now the folk at the MS Campus in Redmond are pretty collegial, so it wasn't long before the folks in the Xenix project and the folks working on DOS were drinking together.
SC-DOS was a clone of CP/M 86, and was sold for personal computers based on the 8086.
To give some objective perspective, Dan Galorath, a computer consultant in El Segundo, Calif., was responsible for deciding between MS DOS 2.0 and CP/M as the operating system for an IBM PC clone that Commodore planned but never built.
Galorath told internetnews.com he jchose MS DOS for two reasons.
Galorath met with both companies before making the decision, and found them to be similar in their sales methods -- or lack thereof.
where Cp, app water (T) and Vapp water (T) are the apparent specific heat capacity and volume of water taken from Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 66th Edn.
(1985-86), ∆Cp, obs (T) is the observed difference in heat capacity between the lipids and the water baseline, Vapp
The calorimetric enthalpy ∆Hcal of the transition was determined as the area under the excess heat capacity curve.
It's hard for me to judge the discussion of this in comp.os.cpm in Sept-0ct 2004, which is the only place on the Web that appears to mention this at length.
But it is difficult to find any of these on line, and they and originals of any sort are scarce at best and controversial at worse.
That's another way of saying that there are a variety of ways CP/M 86 sets up its boot tracks, the directory sectors, and the arrangment of data sectors on a track.
As to was QDOS a new operating system or a adaptation of CP/M is hard to say, It is more certain to say that CP/M 86 had a lot more in common with QDOS than CP/M had.
To what level of cooperation there was between Digital Research and Seattle Computer or if the code was copied will never be resolved.
Digital Research later came back into the DOS market with DR-DOS claiming it to be based on CP/M 86 and thier own DOS code, and by others as a reverse engineered copy of IBM PC-DOS.
These computers ran an operating system developed by Digital Research Corp. (no relation to DEC) known as CP/M. QDOS was written for Intel's 16-bit microprocessor - the 8086.
It attempted to provide a system for these machines that would be upwards-compatible with CP/M. At about the same time, Digital Research produced its own 8086 version of CP/M, known as CP/M 86.
When IBM decided to develop a line of personal computers based on the Intel 8086, they considered both CP/M 86 and MS/DOS, but ultimately decided to use the latter - calling it PC/DOS on their systems.
Mike has been working with a CP/M 86 system he owns (on a Godbout 8085/8088 board) and has been using an IBM Personal Computer at the local Computerland store on off-hours.
He has acquired the Microsoft Macro Assembler and tested it, and has determined how to interconvert programs between PCDOS/MSDOS and CP/M 86.
This means we can develop on one and sell on both.
Microsoft History (Genealogy)(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-01)
A few things from the Internet about MS Windows: For clarification - DOS is one of the most efficient and fast OS systems out there, but it was designed to do one thing at a time.
1977 MS BASIC (Beyond) Microsoft develops FORTRAN, COBOL, and Assembler, extending the capabilities of the PC into scientific and business realms.
Note1: The initial IBM PC actually offered the user a choice of one of three operating systems: PC-DOS, CP/M 86, and UCSD p-System, a Pascal-based system.
Gigante provides a welcome account of the literary côterie of the Neapolitan shores, with particular reference to Philodemus and Vergil, and to recent exciting readings of recovered carbonized fragments from the Villa of the Papyri (L. Calpurnius Piso?) where excavations are once again in progress.
Cavallero, M. Mungo, ``Las figuras iniciátas en la Eneida,'' BUENOS AIRES 161-173.
Digital Research release CP/M 86 for the Intel 8086 Processer
(MS OS/2) a new personal computer operating system.
It has been designed and developed specifically to harness the capabilities of personal computers based upon the Intel 80286 and 80386 microprocessors.
09/10/97 : Posted MP/M II for Altos, GSX test suite, GSX v1.2 binary, DR-DRAW 86, DR-GRAPH 86, and driver source for DR-DRAW and DR-GRAPH. 09/02/97 : Posted PLM80 localy because the Intel link went bad.
Added some CP/M-86 patches, some sample code for CP/M 2.2, and a ZIP file of code to help bring up CP/M 3 on a CP/M 2.2 BIOS.