ScuzzBlog: Diaries December 2017
Entry 16th December 2017: Post: 5
Digital Research
Picking up on that page in the 9256 manual you can appreciate that
Amstrad were heavily involved with Digital Research.
CBASIC, CP/M, CP/M-86 and CP/NET to name some of their products.
CP/M 2.2 was the first for Amstrad and because it needed a disk
drive it was included with the DDI-1. Some were concerned prior to
its release that the OS would basically take up all the memory
allocation leaving nothing to program with. The drive however made
it possible to run CP/M on the CPC 464.
CP/M was also includes with the PCW machines though included RPED
which was created by Amstrad as a full screen editor.
The main programming tool provided by Digital Research to Amstrad
was the GEM desktop which was used on the 1512, albeit with the
option of MS-DOS or Dr DOS. Probably gave DR a lifeline given that
Sugar could not secure an acceptable deal with MS at the time.
Two applications worth a mention are 1st Word Plus a word processor
developed by GST Computer Systems in the 1980s primarily for the
Atari but ported to the Amstrad and the GEM desktop and CBASIC the
primary language for development of the CP/M commercial applications.
Digital Research are a company that could have been more influential
in the world of computing had they been able to match MS's marketing
muscle. Sadly they fell short of the mark in the end and lost the
giant foothold they once had in the market. Shame really cus for me
they still are a very important aspect of the history of computers
and I just wish there had been a lot more.
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