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Looking for a good CP/M emulator.

L

LLarry

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Joined
Jan 30, 2025
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4
I'd like one that will run under Windows 10/11. I'm just getting started with CP/M.
 
Well I guess it depends on what you're looking for.

I personally like z80pack from https://www.icl1900.co.uk/unix4fun/z80pack/

I run it on MacOS, but they have Windows installs (which I've never tried). It's just a command line program, not a program with its own window (at least the one I use). Just make sure you have ANSI.SYS (or however that works nowadays) for your shell so terminal stuff works.

It works well for me, there's a boatload of software disks on that site that are ready to use, I can (mostly) slow the simulator down to "native" levels (I don't feel the I/O is vintage, but the CPU certainly is).

Its been well maintained, I've been using it for years.
 
for a complete environment:

https://altair32.classiccmp.org/ <--website might be down.

https://web.archive.org/web/20250127094822/https://altair32.classiccmp.org/ <-web backup
download V3.35

this will give you a Altair 8800 emulator in a nice package for windows with a lot of features and things you can expand on with reading on the documentation like 5-8mb hard drive support.
it makes it easy to boot up a CP/M 2 or 3 floppy and start typing away on a terminal. its basically a Z80pack in a nice format for windows 10/11

i played around with this during the covid era and then moved to more complex realistic simulations of vintage equipment.

that will 100% get you going with Cp/M and all the applications and games, and programming you could want to dive into.
you can add roms, devices that are very rare to find in the real world, you can also setup a real terminal to interface with the altair emulation so you could play with tekronics displays or GSX support (even just using Teraterm)

Cp/M is very much just a text environment but you can bend the rules on that.

if you have used MS-DOS then Cp/M is basically the same as they have a sorted history together.
 
More to the point--are you looking for a CPU emulator (you load in stock CP/M OS separately) or a CP/M emulator (provides CP/M environment, but doesn't use any DRI products).

And what CP/M are you looking for? x80 or x86?
 
Probably X80. But I'll try the X86 at some point. I've only used CPM2.2 (X80) with an Atari emulator. (The Indus GT disk drive used a Z80 cpu, and it is possible to use CP/M with the disk drive as the host and the Atari as a terminal.) I'd probably be happy with the one that is easiest to use.
 
It also depends whether you want to:
  • Run a CP/M program 'transparently', so that it behaves, as far as possible, like a native program;
  • Run CP/M itself in a virtual machine designed for emulation;
  • Emulate a real system that happened to run CP/M.
As an extreme example of the last type, you might use a Commodore 64 emulator to run an emulated version of that system's CP/M cartridge. Then you, too, can experience glacial performance, a restrictive 40x24 screen, lack of any useful terminal emulation, and extreme difficulty getting files in and out of the emulated environment.

It also depends what version of CP/M you want to run. If you want to run CP/M-80, you've got lots of emulators of all three persuasions. With versions for other architectures (CP/M-86, CP/M-68K etc) I think you're more limited to emulators on the 'emulate a real system' end of the spectrum.
 
Way back when I was writing my own emulator ( which is a bit more of a system emulator rather than generic ) I originally reached a point where it was just a command .EXE under Windows 10/11 that opened a "CP/M" like shell into DOS, that ran CP/M software and just used the Windows CLI, so all of the scroll-back, buffering and other benefits of the Windows CMD environment still remained.

It just took all of the files in to the local directory and turned them into "A:" on CP/M.

Sometimes when I read posts like this, I get the feeling that's what a few people want. A simple CLI emulator, without any fancy Windows graphics ( just emulated ADM-3A in DOS) and to allow the user to see and use the same files in the same directory from which the shell was run, maybe with a few extra commands to extend Windows directory structures into CP/M.

My own "stepping stone" didn't quite reach that far, and originally I was using a custom version of "compatible" CP/M, but there's been times I've just wanted to go back there and just recreate and extend that single CPM.EXE file that changed the shell and emulated z80 for the duration of the session and just use the orignal DRI binaries... Especially when I just want to quickly see how something works under CP/M and all I have is the .COM files.

I do recall at times having issues with downloading just the .COM files, but it does make me wonder whether anyone wrote anything like that. Even I've wanted something like that enough times to consider writing it myself.

@durgadas311 had something similar that he offered to me once, which was very helpful to compare against when I was writing my own emulator, but that required me to install Java - it wasn't an executable. It wasn't as simple as a shell but it wasn't far off. And it allowed files both into and out of the shell from a normal Windows directory. If you don't mind installing Java, that would be a good option? It was probably the best CP/M emulator I've used to date - although in truth it isn't really CP/M as the BDOS is rewritten to work with the PC directory structure and files, but most software doesn't mind that.

Might be worth PM'ing him if you want a good CP/M "shell"
 
I didn't realize there were so many CP/M emulators! I purchased a copy of CP/Mbox this morning, and looking through my computer CD/DVD collection, I found that sometime in the past I bought a copy of the Walnut Creek CP/M CD. Never used it, but I certainly will explore it now. I also had an ATR8000, which is an accessory for the Atari 8-bit that had a Z80 in it and allowed you to run CP/M. I played around with CP/M with it years ago, but I always was very unimpressed with the 40-column screen or software 80-column.

Thanks for all the informative replies!
 
Last edited:

The *HUMONGOUS* CP/M Software Archives

The Internet's largest, most comprehensive collection of software for Digital Research's CP/M family of operating systems.
cpmarchives.classiccmp.org cpmarchives.classiccmp.org


gigs and gigs of stuff, take you years to search through. when you don't think somebody ever tried something in Cp/M before, they did and its buried in there somewhere.
also there are 100s of links like those 2 to other websites with cp/m archives from europe, russia, denmark,, etc...


what you find is MS-DOS attracted the mainstream, till windows 95 came out.. Cp/M was the hackers playground from the late 1970s into the 2000s and beyond.
 
LLarry,
Plus, if you download CP/M images you are going to run across lots of different CP/M Floppy Formats.
ChuckG's 22DISK allows you to use a DOS computer to access over 455+ CP/M floppy Formats.
If you use cpmtools or cpmtools built with libdsk, then you also need Floppy Definitions for those
Formats. They can be located here:
github.com

GitHub - ldkraemer/CPM-Floppy-Definitions: A listing of CP/M Floppy Definitions to access CP/M Images

A listing of CP/M Floppy Definitions to access CP/M Images - GitHub - ldkraemer/CPM-Floppy-Definitions: A listing of CP/M Floppy Definitions to access CP/M Images
github.com github.com


Understanding CP/M:
L

Post in thread 'Understanding CP/M...'

There are several commands that exist to display a lot more information about your system. Try these commands:

STAT DEV:
STAT VAL:
STAT DSK:
STAT USR:

List Directories, of each Drive, for each possible User [0..15], for each of your Floppy's, searching for SYSGEN, MOVCPM, SUBMIT, DDT, etc.

USER 0
DIR A:*.*
DIR B:*.*

USER 1
DIR A:*.*
DIR B:*.*

USER 2
DIR A:*.*
DIR B:*.*

Continue to:

USER 15
DIR A:*.*
DIR B:*.*

File types in Directories follow this description:

FILE TYPES
==========

ASC ASCII text file, usually Basic source
ASM ASseMbly langaige file (source for ASM program)...



Larry
 
cj7hawk said:
I more had the feeling it was like a digital la brea tarpit.

But it's still fun to learn and work with.
Click to expand...

Having lived it, It really wasn't.

Funny enough the last 50 years of computers evolving, at the time it felt like an eternity now, looking back it was the blink of an eye.
 
furball1985 said:
Having lived it, It really wasn't.

Funny enough the last 50 years of computers evolving, at the time it felt like an eternity now, looking back it was the blink of an eye.
Click to expand...

I came in just on the end of CP/M, in the early 80s - so I started with the small home PCs and learned enough to know to move to the PC as my next step.

For me, true pain was having a computer with no support and no software available - so I had to learn to write everything I wanted for it.

My only experience working with CP/M is in the modern era - :) More tools and equipment available now.

And, well, I find it fun at least :)
 
Just read this entire thread and there are great links and a wealth of knowledge. I signed up for this account yesterday and it's been well worth the reads. Appreciate everyone's input and experience.
 
Has anyone written an article to compare/contrast the various emulators out there?
Seems to be a bewildering assortment these days.
-J
 
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