On 9/27/2015 7:30 PM, Eric Christopherson wrote: > On Sun, Sep 27, 2015, Jay Jaeger wrote: >> On 9/27/2015 12:30 AM, Eric Christopherson wrote: >> >>> On Tue, Sep 22, 2015, Jay Jaeger wrote: >>>> (BTW, My memory of that acronym is "Machine Assisted Resource >>>> Coordinator", a small-sized Unix work-alike developed by Ed Ziemba (RIP) >>>> using Leor Zolman's BDS C compiler). >>> >>> I'm having trouble finding much about this system; most of it is on your >>> web page and the Wikipedia page for BDS C, which appears to borrow quite >>> a bit from your page. Was MARC an OS itself, or a Unix-like layer on >>> CP/M? Is it available to download and play with? >>> >> >> I'm not surprised, as it was never available as a product. I originally >> inquired about it after an article about it in the BDS C User's Group >> newsletter, and talked with Ed Ziemba, and he agreed to send me a copy >> to play with / test. I tested a few versions before Ed Ziemba's >> passing, and did some work on programs like icheck/ncheck/dcheck. >> >> It was an operating system, not a layer on top of CP/M, although it did >> use the CP/M BIOS calling conventions for the I/O layer. And, until you >> got your own BIOS integrated into your copy of MARC, it could boot by >> starting up a CP/M program on top of your existing BIOS, which was >> termed a "parasitic boot". > > Did it have multitasking? >
No, not that I recall. That would have taken additional hardware for a timer interrupt, at the least, and my Altair never had that. I recall pipes being done as files, ala Mini-Unix. JRJ
