Xerox, IBM, and CP/M for Office Automation

[utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!AFITGORDON at BBNB]

        Re Dave Farber's message of 23 June, I think Dave brought up a
very good point.  UNIX development costs would  be  higher  than  CP/M
costs  if  the  target  processor  is an 8080/Z80.  Since the majority
(90%+) of UNIX is written in C, problems would arise in  bootstrapping
up  UNIX  (provided  in  source).   Among  these problems would be the
creation of the machine-dependent interface, the writing or  modifying
of  a C compiler on the development OS thru which to compile UNIX, and
the media transportability  problem  from  the  C/UNIX  world  to  the
development environment to the target environment.  CP/M, on the other
hand, only requires that a new BIOS (Basic I/O System, which  provides
the machine-dependent drivers for CP/M) be created for the target.

        I feel, however, that Xerox and IBM  are  not  aiming  at  the
"home"  market,  but  at  the  "personal computer" market.  The latter
(which includes the "home" market as a  subset)  is  being  used  with
increasing frequency by small businesses for automated office support.
Accounting, word processing, data base  manipulation,  and  electronic
mail  are just some of the applications in this environment, and these
applications are similar to those required by the automated office  in
general.   Hence, Xerox and IBM COULD be further aiming at this market
and set of applications, and  could  significantly  add  to  the  CP/M
software base for office automation.

                                        Rick
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