Date   : Fri, 06 Apr 1990 20:43:00 GMT
From   : swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!rsoft!mindlink!a577@ucsd.edu (Curt Sampson)
Subject: Why Bother With CP/M?

> karn@jupiter..bellcore.com writes:
> 
> Yes, my code did indeed begin life on CP/M, specifically the Xerox 820.
> But this was five years ago, and much has happened in the meantime to PC
> clone pricing and availability to make me wonder why anybody would still
> be interested in CP/M. With XT clone boards having bottomed out at $60
> or so, and with a well-established and highly competitive supplier network
> supporting PC technology, why bother with Z-80s and CP/M? I just don't see
> the point.

There are several reasons.  One is cost.  I bought a Kaypro 4 for $200, which
is the price of two double sided drives up here.  (Buy two drives, get computer
thrown in free!  What a deal!)  To get an equivalant IBM system would have cost
me about $500-$600 for the hardware and probably another couple hundred for the
software.  A good electronic type writer costs as much as my whole system (it
cost me another $85 for the printer).
Another reason is speed.  My Kaypro runs faster for non-number crunching tasks
than an 8 MHz XT with floppy drives (and in some cases, even a hard drive
system).  There's no way that a machine can load a 200K program faster than a
machine can load a 25K program.  And because the CP/M machine is doing a lot
less, even with less processing power it is often faster.  I get by fine
without a lot of the extras that the IBM programs do.  (I have no particular
need for windows.)

The last reason is that it's fun!  CP/M machines are simple enough that you can
play around and hack with the OS without any major problems.  If this is what
makes someone happy, then that's what they should be doing, no matter how cheap
XT motherboards are.

I'm not trying to start any kind of a "my computer is better than yours" war
here, just trying to point out why I prefer my CP/M machine to my IBM XT clone.
(I just bought the XT clone to run a BBS.)  Feel free to flame me though--just
send it to net.comp.amiga.  :-)

                  -CJS       ( Curt_Sampson@mindlink.UUCP )