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QPM by Mitchell Mlinar, any one used it?

J

JimA1

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QPM was a product by MICROCode consulting in 1985 as a Z80 rewrite of CP/M 2.2 with 10%-15% performance improvements and more features in the same memory footprint. Written by Mitchell Mlinar and he released it for free (personal use) since 2002. He hosts the final docs, utilities and a MYZ80 ready to boot QPM v2.71 1985. See Mitchell's 8bit page for downloads.

I have used it on MYZ80 emulator and on a TRS80 Model 4 using Montezuma Micro BIOS 1.44 1983 (could not get it to work with any later BIOS). It has QDOS and QCP as replacement to DRI's BDOS+CCP. Also comes with QINSTALL to SYSGEN your existing BIOS with QPM and create a bootable system disk.

I have been looking for more info on it.

Does any one remember how much it was selling for in 1985?
When was it first released?
Does anyone remember any ads (InfoWorld, Byte, etc)?
Any cool tricks, uses, apps or stories to share?
Thanks, Jim
 
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How interesting... I would like to know more also, and it would be great to see the source code.

I too wrote a CP/M replacement in z80 code, and it's on Github, source and all, and while QP/M looks a little more polished, I solved the memory issue above 64K by combining BDOS and memory architectures so that my extended memory architecture ( including 64K of video memory ) can be accessed via the BDOS, using existing system calls... Either as a RAM DISK, or to directly locate pages and page them into memory, and allows rapid context switching supported by hardware with memory contexts switched in a single cycle. And fully supported under either LokiOS ( my own version ) or even under the original DRI BDOS, which still works and can be switched in if absolute compatability is required.

So I'd really love to hear more about this version - Do you know if he ever released his source for this? I'd be really interested to know how someone else did it.

David.
 
cj7hawk said:
How interesting... I would like to know more also, and it would be great to see the source code.

I too wrote a CP/M replacement in z80 code, and it's on Github, source and all, and while QP/M looks a little more polished, I solved the memory issue above 64K by combining BDOS and memory architectures so that my extended memory architecture ( including 64K of video memory ) can be accessed via the BDOS, using existing system calls... Either as a RAM DISK, or to directly locate pages and page them into memory, and allows rapid context switching supported by hardware with memory contexts switched in a single cycle. And fully supported under either LokiOS ( my own version ) or even under the original DRI BDOS, which still works and can be switched in if absolute compatability is required.

So I'd really love to hear more about this version - Do you know if he ever released his source for this? I'd be really interested to know how someone else did it.

David.
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Really nice to know about LokiOS. The source for QPM was never released. I have contacted Mitchell but have not heard back yet. Will let share an update once I hear back. I hope others have some more to share about useing QPM or even remember it from its commercial days 1985 (39 years wow).
 
QP/M is included in the Z80-MBC2 boot menu. I have never used QP/M before but I like that A0 is part of the drive search. I recently updated MBC2 QP/M with the latest MBC2 BIOS so that the modified xmodem program for MBC2 CP/M 2.2 also works properly under QP/M. MBC2 shares the console IO for file upload/download. Xmodem for MBC2 and the CPM 2.2 BIOS was modded for 8 bit data transfers for the console. https://github.com/nxtsem/Z80-MBC2
 
Phil_ID said:
QP/M is included in the Z80-MBC2 boot menu. I have never used QP/M before but I like that A0 is part of the drive search. I recently updated MBC2 QP/M with the latest MBC2 BIOS so that the modified xmodem program for MBC2 CP/M 2.2 also works properly under QP/M. MBC2 shares the console IO for file upload/download. Xmodem for MBC2 and the CPM 2.2 BIOS was modded for 8 bit data transfers for the console. https://github.com/nxtsem/Z80-MBC2
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Thank you Phil_ID for sharing your Z80-MBC2. QP/M 2.71 is also included with Humongous CP/M distribution CP/M-Live!
 
Thanks for the welcome. Unfortunately I don't have an actual "vintage" CP/M computer. I built a Ferguson Big Board back in 1980 and added a "large" (in physical size only) 8" hard drive. I can't locate my Big Board PCB, so I have a MBC2 now and a SC126 on the way. QP/M claims to include an enhanced version of ZCPR 1.0 (at command level 3) but I don't know enough about ZCPR or their "QCP" to know what additional features that this provides.
 
Phil_ID said:
Thanks for the welcome. Unfortunately I don't have an actual "vintage" CP/M computer. I built a Ferguson Big Board back in 1980 and added a "large" (in physical size only) 8" hard drive. I can't locate my Big Board PCB, so I have a MBC2 now and a SC126 on the way. QP/M claims to include an enhanced version of ZCPR 1.0 (at command level 3) but I don't know enough about ZCPR or their "QCP" to know what additional features that this provides.
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I played around with it, but I am not an expert in QP/M, nor its biggest proponent but I will gladly share all that I know.

I ran the MYZ80 emulator under DOSBOX 0.74-3 with Mlinar's preconfigured QP/M 2.71 for MYZ80. QP/M 2.71 gave the same maximum TPA of 59K when overlaying QCP or 57K without overlaying QCP. QCP implements ZCPR 1.0 1982 like improvements but it is not full Zsystem ZCPR 3-3.4 1985-1988, ie Z3 applications will not work. It does add datestamp, path, auto disk logging (no Ctrl-C needed), multi-commands per line (";" as command separator), and few other enhanements. QCP PDF goes into more details. Happy explorations.
 
I'm using QP/M with 3 Kaypros (all 2/2x 84's). It works well. I was mostly looking for time/date stamping after updating my Kaypros with RTCs.

My notes:
* Doesn't seem to work with the 2.2g universal rom/bios. Not sure what's causing this.
* Works with Turbo Rom and KayPlus ROM
* ED (of all things!) has a problem if the default user/drive feature is used

For the last, ED was the only program I found that had a problem. Wordstar 3.3 and VEDIT in particular work fine. I wasn't really looking for the default user/drive search feature, so I disabled it. Interesting to me is that using the CCP commands to disable default drive/user still didn't allow ED to work. Only disabling the feature at QINSTALL time fixed it. While I don't use ED a ton, I like to have it for quick line edits and as I mentioned, the default user/drive search feature wasn't a big deal for me.
 
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