[TUHS] Zilog Z80 Unix

[Wesley Parish]

FWIW, I've got a copy of "A Book on C" by RE Berry, BAE Meekings and MD Soren, which presents an 
extension of Small C called RatC, and with example translations from RatC to 8080 and VAX.

Did anyone use RatC for any major project?

Wesley Parish

Quoting Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com>:

> Leor Zolman had a little firm her in NE called Brain Damaged Software
> (BDS)
> and he wrote and marketed a full C compiler called BDS C -
> http://www.bdsoft.com/resources/bdsc.html [ which is now freely
> available -
> including the sources]. For years Leor's compiler was the de facto
> standard K&R style C compiler for the 8080/z80 systems for CP/M and
> such
> systems. [What was important, is that until Leor, the CP/M community
> was
> using something called "Small C" which was a sub-set of the language.
> Leor
> managed to get V7/K&R into a 8080].
> 
> A couple of other folks (which I thought included Leor) had a UNIX-like
> system running on/with it that we showed to Dennis at first Boston
> USENIX
> in late the 1970s/early 1980s - that IIRC could take CP/M programs -
> [although they may have to been relinked]. My memory is that the system
> got sold/licensed to a firm on the west coast and marketed independently
> of
> BDS C, [you might ask Leor or maybe some like Phil Karn - i.e. any one
> that
> was doing both UNIX and CP/M in those days].
> 
> If forgotten the details, I do remember Dennis saying that it reminded
> him
> very much of early UNIX and was very impressed with job that had been
> done. The basic tools were there: sh, ed, grep, ls and it was quite
> usable
> modulo floppy disk speeds.
> 
> Clem
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 9:42 PM, Erik E. Fair <fair-tuhs at netbsd.org>
> wrote:
> 
> > I have a memory of having seen a Zilog Z-80 (not Z8002 like the Onyx)
> > based Unix, possibly v6, at a vendor show or conference - perhaps the
> West
> > Coast Computer Faire (WCCF) in the late 1970s or early 1980s.
> >
> > I recall asking the people in the booth how they managed without an
> MMU,
> > and don't recall their answer. I do remember thinking that since Unix
> had
> > "grown up" with MMUs to stomp on obvious pointer mistakes, the
> software
> > ought to be relatively well-behaved ... you know: not trying to play
> "core
> > war" with itself?
> >
> > I searched the TUHS archives cursorily with Google to see if this has
> been
> > previously mentioned, but pretty much all Z80 CPU references have for
> its
> > use in "smart" I/O devices back in the day.
> >
> > Does anyone else remember this Z80 Unix and who did it? Or maybe that
> it
> > was a clone of some kind ... ?
> >
> > looking for a little history,
> >
> > Erik Fair
> >
>  



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