Developer | Digital Research, Inc. / Tom Rolander, [1] [2] [3] [4] Gary Kildall, Frank Holsworth [5] [6] |
---|---|
OS family | CP/M |
Working state | Discontinued |
Source model | Originally closed source, since open sourced |
Initial release | 1979[7] [8] |
Latest release | 2.1 / 1982 |
Available in | English |
Platforms | 8080, 8085, Z80, 8086, 80286 |
Kernel type | Monolithic kernel |
Default user interface | Command-line interface |
License | Originally proprietary, now BSD-like |
Preceded by | CP/M, CP/M-86 |
Succeeded by | Concurrent CP/M, Concurrent CP/M-86 |
Official website | www |
MP/M (Multi-Programming Monitor Control Program [8] ) is a discontinued multi-user version of the CP/M operating system, created by Digital Research developer Tom Rolander in 1979. [1] [7] [8] [9] [2] [3] [4] It allowed multiple users to connect to a single computer, each using a separate terminal.
MP/M was a fairly advanced operating system for its era, at least on microcomputers. It included a priority-scheduled multitasking kernel (before such a name was used, the kernel was referred to as the nucleus) with memory protection, concurrent input/output (XIOS) and support for spooling and queueing. It also allowed for each user to run multiple programs, and switch between them.
The 8-bit system required a 8080 (or Z80) CPU and a minimum of 32 KB of RAM to run, but this left little memory for user applications. In order to support reasonable setups, MP/M allowed for memory to be switched in and out of the machine's "real memory" area. So for instance a program might be loaded into a "bank" of RAM that was not addressable by the CPU, and when it was time for the program to run that bank of RAM would be "switched" to appear in low memory (typically the lower 32 or 48 KB) and thus become visible to the OS. This technique, known as bank switching was subsequently added to the single user version of CP/M with version 3.0.
One of the primary uses of MP/M, perhaps to the surprise of DRI, was as a "power user" version of CP/M for a single user. The ability to run several programs at the same time and address large amounts of memory made the system worth the extra price.
MP/M II 2.0 added file sharing capabilities in 1981, [10] [11] [12] MP/M II 2.1 came with extended file locking in January 1982. [10]
Versions:
Like CP/M, MP/M was eventually ported to the 16-bit Intel 8086, and appeared as MP/M-86 2.0 in September 1981. [14] [15] [16] Main developers of the system include Francis "Frank" R. Holsworth, [5] [6] later a director of marketing at Digital Research. Known revisions of MP/M-86 2.0 were dated 25 September 1981 and 5 October 1981. There also was an MP/M-86 2.1 dated 20 July 1982. [17]
MP/M-86 2.1 absorbed some of the technology of CP/M-86 1.1 (BDOS 2.2) to become Concurrent CP/M-86 3.0 [nb 1] (BDOS 3.0) in late 1982, [18] which also added support for "virtual screens". [18] Kathryn Strutynski, the project manager for CP/M-86, continued as project manager for Concurrent CP/M-86. In December 1983, [19] a DOS emulator named PC-MODE became available as an optional module for Concurrent CP/M-86 3.1 (BDOS 3.1), shipping on 21 February 1984, [20] and the system was further developed into the MS-DOS compatible Concurrent DOS (BDOS 3.1 and higher). [21] This in turn continued to evolve into FlexOS and Multiuser DOS and as such is still in use in some industrial applications.
MP/M 8-16 (sometimes also referred to as MP/M-8/16 [18] ) was CompuPro's name for a combination of the multi-user 16-bit MP/M-86 to perform single-user, single-stream CP/M functions, along with multi-user, multi-tasking 8-bit MP/M operations [18] running on the multi-processor CompuPro System 816 . [22] Later on, this system was also able to run Concurrent DOS 3.1.
In 1982, Digital Research announced plans to develop MP/M-286 to take advantage of the 16-bit Intel 80286's new memory management and protection features to run existing MP/M-86 and CP/M-86 applications. [23] This was apparently never published "as is", but was further developed into Concurrent CP/M-286, [24] which seems to have formed the basis for the later Concurrent DOS 286 in 1985 [24] and FlexOS 286 in 1986.
The following list of commands are supported by the MP/M II Console Command Processor CCP: [25]
In the early 1980s Digital Research also developed networking software named CP/NET used to connect an MP/M server with multiple CP/NET clients (named requesters) running CP/M. [26] It was originally developed by Tom Rolander. [2]
MP/NET was an MP/M system with networking allowing the MP/M system to function as both requester and server with CP/M requesters. [26]
The CP/NET clients could also be run in a diskless configuration with the system stored in ROM, then named CP/NOS (with NOS for Network Operating System). Similar, MP/NOS contained MP/M without local disk facilities. Like CP/NOS, MP/NOS performed the disk functions through the network. [26]
The system allowed to share files and printers and send electronic messages.
CP/NET existed in versions 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2 in versions for 8080 and Z80 processors. CP/NET-86 for 8086 was available as well.
Caldera permitted the redistribution and modification of all original Digital Research files, including source code, related to the CP/M and MP/M families through Tim Olmstead's "The Unofficial CP/M Web site" since 1997. [28] [29] [30] After Olmstead's death on 12 September 2001, [31] the free distribution license was refreshed and expanded by Lineo, who had meanwhile become the owner of those Digital Research assets, on 19 October 2001. [32] [33] [34] [35]
Gary Arlen Kildall was an American computer scientist and microcomputer entrepreneur. During the 1970s, Kildall created the CP/M operating system among other operating systems and programming tools, and subsequently founded Digital Research, Inc. to market and sell his software products. Kildall was among the earliest individuals to recognize microprocessors as fully capable computers, and to organize a company around this concept. Due to his accomplishments during this era, Kildall is considered a pioneer of the personal computer revolution.
CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. CP/M is a disk operating system and its purpose is to organize files on a magnetic storage medium, and to load and run programs stored on a disk. Initially confined to single-tasking on 8-bit processors and no more than 64 kilobytes of memory, later versions of CP/M added multi-user variations and were migrated to 16-bit processors.
DR-DOS is a disk operating system for IBM PC compatibles. Upon its introduction in 1988, it was the first DOS that attempted to be compatible with IBM PC DOS and MS-DOS.
Digital Research, Inc. was a privately held American software company created by Gary Kildall to market and develop his CP/M operating system and related 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit systems like MP/M, Concurrent DOS, FlexOS, Multiuser DOS, DOS Plus, DR DOS and GEM. It was the first large software company in the microcomputer world. Digital Research was originally based in Pacific Grove, California, later in Monterey, California.
CP/M-86 is a discontinued version of the CP/M operating system that Digital Research (DR) made for the Intel 8086 and Intel 8088. The system commands are the same as in CP/M-80. Executable files used the relocatable .CMD file format. Digital Research also produced a multi-user multitasking operating system compatible with CP/M-86, MP/M-86, which later evolved into Concurrent CP/M-86. When an emulator was added to provide PC DOS compatibility, the system was renamed Concurrent DOS, which later became Multiuser DOS, of which REAL/32 is the latest incarnation. The FlexOS, DOS Plus, and DR DOS families of operating systems started as derivations of Concurrent DOS as well.
86-DOS is a discontinued operating system developed and marketed by Seattle Computer Products (SCP) for its Intel 8086-based computer kit.
Dynamic Debugging Technique (DDT) is a series of debugger programs originally developed for Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) hardware, initially known as DEC Debugging Tape because it was distributed on paper tape. The name is a pun on the insecticide DDT. The first version of DDT was developed at MIT for the PDP-1 computer in 1961, but newer versions on newer platforms continued to use the same name. After being ported to other vendor's platforms and changing media, the name was changed to the less DEC-centric version. Early versions of Digital Research's CP/M and CP/M-86 kept the DEC name DDT for their debugger, however, now meaning Dynamic Debugging Tool. The CP/M DDT was later superseded by the Symbolic Instruction Debugger in DR DOS and GEM.
Virtual DOS machines (VDM) refer to a technology that allows running 16-bit/32-bit DOS and 16-bit Windows programs when there is already another operating system running and controlling the hardware.
Multiuser DOS is a real-time multi-user multi-tasking operating system for IBM PC-compatible microcomputers.
Relocation is the process of assigning load addresses for position-dependent code and data of a program and adjusting the code and data to reflect the assigned addresses. Prior to the advent of multiprocess systems, and still in many embedded systems, the addresses for objects were absolute starting at a known location, often zero. Since multiprocessing systems dynamically link and switch between programs it became necessary to be able to relocate objects using position-independent code. A linker usually performs relocation in conjunction with symbol resolution, the process of searching files and libraries to replace symbolic references or names of libraries with actual usable addresses in memory before running a program.
A source-to-source translator, source-to-source compiler, transcompiler, or transpiler is a type of translator that takes the source code of a program written in a programming language as its input and produces an equivalent source code in the same or a different programming language. A source-to-source translator converts between programming languages that operate at approximately the same level of abstraction, while a traditional compiler translates from a higher level programming language to a lower level programming language. For example, a source-to-source translator may perform a translation of a program from Python to JavaScript, while a traditional compiler translates from a language like C to assembler or Java to bytecode. An automatic parallelizing compiler will frequently take in a high level language program as an input and then transform the code and annotate it with parallel code annotations or language constructs.
In computing, ren
is a command in various command-line interpreters (shells) such as COMMAND.COM
, cmd.exe
, 4DOS, 4NT and Windows PowerShell. It is used to rename computer files and in some implementations also directories. It is analogous to the Unix mv
command. However, unlike mv
, ren
cannot be used to move files, as a new directory for the destination file may not be used. Alternatively, move
may be used if available. On versions of MS-DOS that do not support the move
command, the user would simply copy the file to a new destination, and then delete the original file. A notable exception to this rule is DOSBox, in which ren
may be used to move a file, since move
is not supported.
In computing, type is a command in various command-line interpreters (shells) such as COMMAND.COM
, cmd.exe
, 4DOS/4NT and Windows PowerShell used to display the contents of specified files on the computer terminal. The analogous Unix command is cat.
FlexOS is a discontinued modular real-time multiuser multitasking operating system (RTOS) designed for computer-integrated manufacturing, laboratory, retail and financial markets. Developed by Digital Research's Flexible Automation Business Unit in Monterey, California, in 1985, the system was considered to become a successor of Digital Research's earlier Concurrent DOS, but with a new, modular, and considerably different system architecture and portability across several processor families. Still named Concurrent DOS 68K and Concurrent DOS 286, it was renamed into FlexOS on 1 October 1986 to better differentiate the target audiences. FlexOS was licensed by several OEMs who selected it as the basis for their own operating systems like 4680 OS, 4690 OS, S5-DOS/MT and others. Unrelated to FlexOS, the original Concurrent DOS system architecture found a continuation in successors like Concurrent DOS XM and Concurrent DOS 386 as well.
This article presents a timeline of events in the history of 16-bit x86 DOS-family disk operating systems from 1980 to present. Non-x86 operating systems named "DOS" are not part of the scope of this timeline.
DOS is a family of disk-based operating systems for IBM PC compatible computers. The DOS family primarily consists of IBM PC DOS and a rebranded version, Microsoft's MS-DOS, both of which were introduced in 1981. Later compatible systems from other manufacturers include DR-DOS (1988), ROM-DOS (1989), PTS-DOS (1993), and FreeDOS (1998). MS-DOS dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995.
Thomas Alan Rolander is an American entrepreneur, engineer, and developer of the multitasking multiuser operating system MP/M created for microcomputers in 1979 while working as one of the first employees of Digital Research with Gary Kildall, the "father" of CP/M. CP/M and MP/M laid the groundwork to later Digital Research operating system families such as Concurrent CP/M, Concurrent DOS and Multiuser DOS. He also developed CP/NET.
Kathryn Betty Strutynski was a mathematician and computer scientist, and attended University at Brigham Young University and the Naval Postgraduate School. Besides jobs at Pan Am Airways and Bechtel Corporation, she worked at Digital Research, where she contributed to the development of CP/M, the first mainstream operating system for microcomputers.
[…] "Concurrent DOS Release 3.1 is rapidly gaining momentum and support from a wide range of microcomputer manufacturers," Wandryk said. "Some 60 hardware companies have licensed the product since it was released in early March." […]
[…] Digital Research is producing an operating system for the 286. MP/M-286 will take advantage of the processor's memory management and protection and virtual memory support. Digital Research is promising "complete" compatibility with its MP/M-86 and CP/M-86 for the 8086 processor. Intel is supplying Digital Research with the hardware to develop and test MP/M-286. […]
[…] Paul Bailey of Digital Research keenly promotes this approach; it is his company that is supplying ICL and others with Concurrent Dos-286. This chameleon operating system allows ICL and other 80286 manufacturers to build machines that will be able to cope with all the existing body of IBM-PC software -- and at the same time promise multi-tasking, windowing and true concurrency, three features that together allow a single micro to do several things at once. […] Although no firm announcements have been made, it seems certain that by the end of the year ACT will be offering a Concurrent CP/M 286 machine to fuel its drive into the corporate market. But by this time it will have to contend with IBM's own 80286 office micro, the PC/AT. […] IBM also have a software product in the offing that could pull the rug out from under the Concurrent contenders. Some 180K in size, TopView is a program for IBM PC's and AT's that beefs up the operating system to provide windowing facilities for existing 'well behaved' standard packages. […]
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: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) [ permanent dead link ] [ permanent dead link ][…] Let this email represent a right to use, distribute, modify, enhance and otherwise make available in a nonexclusive manner the CP/M technology as part of the "Unofficial CP/M Web Site" with its maintainers, developers and community. I further state that as Chairman and CEO of Lineo, Inc. that I have the right to do offer such a license. […] Bryan Sparks […]
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