Anders Hesselbom

Some cool software for the C128: CP/M

2010-06-11

CP/M, the disk operating system for the Commodore 128

This is one of the strange things about this machine. Microsoft DOS was around, and Commodore was already making computers running DOS. But the Commodore 128 was supposed to run CP/M. Who used this?

If you want to boot CP/M, download the image from here. In the ctools/x128 folder, attach the “cpm128.d64” image to device 8 and type BOOT (or reset the machine).

Attach the first file to drive 8 and type BOOT (or reset the machine). If you’re doing this from a physical C128, make sure to have the 80 col key pressed down. If you’re doing this from the Vice emulator, send the -80 argument to x128.exe at startup.

X128.exe -80

It takes a while to boot, and watching the prompt is sort of just as fun as watching it boot. What can it do? Most of the operations will require that other disks are inserted to the drive. They were delivered with your machine when you bought it, but you probably reformatted those disks to make room for some pirated games. However, you can show the contents of a disk by typing dir and you can get help by typing help. Hang on, it is working on providing you help. No it didn’t crash, it is working on providing you help! Yes, it is. Ah there you go. Like I said, it can provide help!

In purple and everything!

Some commands worth mentioning are PIP to copy or combine files (PIP can be used without any extra disks), ED to edit a file, DUMP to display a file and FORMAT to format a CP/M disk.

Have fun. Or perhaps: Have “fun“.

Categories: Geeky

Tags: C128