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Xerox CP/M Software Question (Currently-running fleabay auction)

As you may know, each CP/M is built to a specific machine. So, the machines this would run on would have to be hardware identical to the one specified. I don't know what the sunrise might be the same as. The value here would be the manual.
Kipp
 
I've suspected that CP/M releases were tied to hardware, but never saw it specifically said. That means that this is relatively useless to me then! I'm just wanting to play around with it - from the screenshots I've seen running on various Kaypro's, it's somewhat DOS-like in appearance, and since I don't have a machine with a Zilog in it (except for my C128), I was hoping to find a copy that would run on a PC.

Ah well... eventually :) Thanks for the response!
 
Well, you have to understand how CP/M is constructed. There's a hardware independent part (BDOS and CCP) of the operating system, then there's a vendor-supplied part that's essentially a hardware abstraction layer (CBIOS). DRI never made any secret about how they're put together and many vendors included the source to the CBIOS. Any vendor-supplied hardware-specific utilities of course, won't work, but it's quite possible to fit a new CBIOS (if you have the ability to write the code) to any vendor's version of CP/M.

But I don't see the point, since the CP/M OEM sources are freely distributed.
 
Indeed. But I would have been willing to pay a few dollars for those original manuals. I used to have a set available, now I only have some poor copies. And the scanned/re-made PDFs on bitsaver etc. aren't that nice (those manuals were in a peculiar format anyway). But international shipping added to those $15 will probably add up to too much.

-Tor
 
The original CP/M manuals were 3-hole punch letter-sized run off on some sort of duplicating equipment. Print quality was pretty bad. I suspect that printing was done on a Diablo Hitype daisy-wheel printer. The paper used was matte-finish low-grade. Later on, DRI distributed the documentation in "perfect" bound books, but with the same awful typeface. If you were a larger OEM, you could get the document files for printing under your own logo, so there were various forms that appeared that way, including the "half-page IBM-sized" type.
 
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