[Coco] CoCo and TRS-80 / CP-M

[wdg3rd at comcast.net]

I seem to have mislaid a parenthesis level in the reply layers.  Had a couple beers.  But the bits without indent are from me and accurate to the best of my recall.  (Aging and drinking can be a bad combo, say some folks, but age means pain and ethanol is the first [and best] man-made analgesic).

> From: "Brian Blake" <random.rodder at gmail.com>

> Yes, as a matter of fact there was. It is in cartridge format.
> I saw it recently, I think in either Color Computer Magazine or Hot
> CoCo.
> > On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 7:33 PM, John W. Linville
> <linville at tuxdriver.com>wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 07:22:26PM -0400, Stephen Adolph wrote:
> > > has there ever been a 6809 port of CP/M?  You would need a
> cartridge
> > > that had an 8080 or similar on it...
> >
> > I'm sure that is exactly what he means -- there are a number of
> > examples for other platforms.
> >

There was never a 6809 port of CP/M.  Architecture alien.  FLEX had similar command set, not by accident.  A guy could move between CP/M and FLEX at command level, programs couldn't transfer.

I do indeed recall seeing a CP/M cartridge for the Color Computer.  I think it was at a RainbowFest in Long Beach, but it could have been in Pasadena (or both -- senility is taking its toll).  A stall or two from the repack in the PCjr case.  It was a cart with a Z-80 (you can't run CP/M on Motorola architecture) similar in concept to the Mickeysoft thing for the Apple.  It worked as far as I could tell (I'm a TRSDOS, LS-DOS, Xenix and OS-9 guy, never worked much with CP/M except when I had to, like during the big '89 TV writer strike when every writer had to have every unsold script moved from an aging Compaq to a new Zenith laptop, I spent three months rigging null-modem cables, more jobs than Laplink packages available and KayPro RS-232 interfaces were as "standard" as Tandy's).  I know WordStar worked on the CoCo cart as well as it ever did anywhere else.  (Poorly, but my preferred word processing packages for the Z-80 are AllWrite (most TRS-80 Z-80 5.25" systems) and Scripsit 2.0 (TRS-80 Model 2, yes, I have one that works) -- (I dislike WordStar, but it's still my preferred program if I can't get a good emulator for something decent running, like in a fanatic 'doze shop [most legal offices come to mind]).

-- 
Ward Griffiths        wdg3rd at comcast.net 

<home.comcast.net/~wdg3rd>