Re: C++ vs. C#
"r norman" <r_s_norman@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:plunu41ode3sujmmh7v55o2vt7bd2oo5s0@4ax.com...
I don't think MASM and LINK existed either! Anyway, CP/M was only good
for
the Osborne I (did the Trash-80 also use that?).
I don't understand what you mean by doubting whether MASM and LINK
existed then. I used them regularly as did everybody else writing
8080 and Z80 code!
MASM is Microsoft Assember, and LINK is the Microsoft linker. If these were
available for CP/M, then you're right, but I don't think Microsoft tools are
commonly associated with CP/M. Even if they were, whatever prominence they
had in CP/M does not negate Borland's products for DOS and Windows, as you
originally stated, "Microsoft dominated the microcomputer development tools
market ever since MASM and LINK! Borland's Turbo products were a brief
interlude."
And there were far more systems than the Osborne;
there were a whole host of S-100 bus systems. The availability of
dBase and WordStar, a database and word processor, meant that it was
a useful business system. In fact it was the ONLY microcomputer
business system! That is, until the spreadsheet, Visicalc, was later
developed for the Apple II. however the Apple was largely viewed as a
toy and game machine by the serious business types. The S-100 systems
or the Osborne-type machines were intended for "real" work and the
spread sheet quickly becamse available for CP/M. I used a variety
called SuperCalc.
And don't sneer at the TRS-80. At the time, the statement was that
more people had written more programs in BASIC (another Microsoft
product!) for the TRS-80 than all the programmers and all the programs
ever written for all the other computers in the world combined.
If the Apple II was a toy and game machine, then the TRS-80 was even more
so. The only reason the Apple II was a toy is because it had a
pixel-addressable graphical mode, and color besides. The TRS-80 was stuck
with character mode graphics and b/w. It didn't help that the TRS-80 was
sold by a company with the word "Shack" in its name. (I was in 8th grade
when I got the Apple II+, and had a constant battle with another guy who had
the TRS-80 Model II.)
No, I don't mean that Gates and Microsoft invented BASIC. That was
Kemeny and Kurz and crew at Dartmouth for large computers. What Allen
and Gates did was write a BASIC interpreter for CP/M (and, of course,
later for PC-DOS) and that is what brought the multitudes into the
world of computing. That is also how they made their initial fortune.
Incidentally, the very rapid acceptance of the IBM-PC into the
business world was largely due to Microsoft's genius in copying much
of CP/M to produce DOS. The operating system functions and calling
mechanisms were virtually identical. That, plus the fact that the
8088 instruction set was so similar to that of the 8080 meant that the
business applications were quickly and easily ported from CP/M to DOS.
What I remember of CP/M is it battled it out with PC-DOS on the original IBM
PC, and PC-DOS won out. I don't see what any of this has to do with
Microsoft vs. Borland dev tools.
-- David