25th Anniversary of the Personal Computer" 4222

On Tue, 15 Aug 2006 15:06:15 +0200

The MP-M Z80 boxes were designed as multi-user systems and shipped with a multi-user OS. There were also easy options for multiple Z80 boxes. You could get an AT, buy a copy of Xenix, hunt down some multi-port serial cards and put together a multi-user system but it wouldn't be a one stop shopping experience - it would also leave a big hole in the wallet. The AT as sold by IBM was very much a single user machine. Eventually AT clones running SCO Xenix did finish off MP?M boxes in the market.

Certainly true early on - of course the Z80 MP-M boxes often had slave processors (sometimes more Z80s) for serial, disc, tape and so forth. Many of them probably had more processing power than an AT when the slave processors were counted in.

Possible, but I think the three magic letters had much more to do with it. Businesses that wouldn't touch anything from companies with no history or things that looked like toys from Radio Shack found IBM a very comforting thing. I read quite a few articles with the general tone that now IBM was in the business these silly little computers had to be taken seriously and not looked on as toys any more.

Not me :) But then by the time the IBM PC came out I was well established in the CP-M MP-M arena.

Perspective I suppose - there weren't really that many of us involved in shifting small computers to business customers in those days and that was where CP-M and MP-M were big sellers.

-- The computer obeys and wins. A better way to focus the sun You lose and Bill collects. licences available see