Hello, Udo!

> There is not much CP/M discussion here

??? Strange, I was thinking that this is the comp.os.CPM Newsgroup!...

> If you want to use CP/M to access the Internet then you need to
> implement appropriate software for this

This is, indeed, one of my programming projects since, years after years, if
I don't do something, nobody else do anything.

> Excuse me, but at work I use real big servers all running Unix

So what? Don't you know that I was a COBOL programmer on IBM Mainframes? The
computing world is divided in several "worlds". There is/was the IBM
Mainframes, the DEC VAXes, then the IBM PC. Unix was only used inside
American Universities. One of my friend was a total FORTRAN fanatic. Have
you any idea of how many Mega/Giga/Tera Bytes of FORTRAN code exist? (and
COBOL?) You would be astonished. And they are not half-cooked code made by
students in American Universities...

Today, everything is mixed because of "upward mobility". At the origin, the
IBM Clown was a 16-bit system (since there was nothing, Bill Gates copied
the universal 8-bit OS: CP/M), then became a 32-bit system. When Xenix
failed to attract the masses, Bill Gates noticed that the Mac had fanatic
users. So, he made Windows. After that, when people started using the
Internet, Internet-compatibility became the goal. Before, it was simple
because each use had its own computer hardware.

> (...) This stuff might be good for usage at
> home as entertainment, but that's far from an universal OS.

Also, there is the problem that there is several kinds of OSes. As my
experience demonstrates, you can be perfectly happy with a 4-MHz Z-80
running a single-user OS like CP/M Plus during 15 years. Multi-tasking OSes
are, inherently, more difficult to use. No wonder that the market uses, by a
huge percentage, Windows rather than Linux. There are also real-time OSes,
but they are needed only in special cases. That's why they are so little
known.

> Have a look
> at Linux, runs on small cell phones up to the biggest IBM mainframe.
> Looks like it is an universal OS usable for everything.

How many Linux work on a 4-MHz Z-80 with 64KB of RAM?

> Reading my email on a CP/M system isn't in that category.

Too bad for us.

> (...) If you want
> me to build your stuff then you are supposed to pay me for that.

Hahaha! Me, I have (according to Google) made more than 20 BASIC programs
that made something useful under CP/M, during the last 10 years. All that
for free, with a text explaining in depth why the program was made. I am a
programmer, not a carpet dealer.

> CP/NET is a very simple point to point protocol for remote procedure
> calls to share some resources like disks and printers. With that you
> won't go anywhere far. Internet uses TCP/IP protocol, something very
> different. Instead of trying to explaining the Internet to me get your
> self busy understanding the protocols. Then you can write software using
it.

Don't worry, I will do it, in times. Haven't you noticed that I do things
step-by-step?
That's why I mentioned CP/NET version 1.2. 1) I hoped that its mention would
revive its use for CP/M 2.2 systems, 2) CP/NET is not tied to any particular
protocol: it could run just as well with TCP/IP, 3) I was thinking, of
course, that it would be a good first step to do before going farther.

Meanwhile, since I am a fan of MP/M-II (I deeply regret not to have a
MP/M-II system. I am really sorry that Bruce Jones disappeared.), I hope to
be able to play again on your MP/M-II system. In particular, I would like to
try CP/NET, to see how you implemented it. Hector Peraza wrote a CP/NET
server for Linux. Here is what he wrote:

This is a program you can use on your Linux machine to communicate with a
single CP/M requester connected to a PC serial port. It uses the RS232
protocol described in Appendix E of the CP/NET documentation.

The program emulates either version 1.1 or 1.2 of CP/NET, and therefore must
be used with a requester running the same CP/NET version. It should be noted
that CP/NET versions 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2 are not compatible with each other
(1.2 is not even backwards compatible with 1.1). Although they use the same
physical-layer protocol over a serial line, they differ at the network-layer
level.

I have included the package working SNIOS modules for the P112 CPU board,
for both CP/NET 1.1 and 1.2 versions. The SNIOS uses the second serial port
of the P112 at 38400 baud.

Yours Sincerely,
Mr. Emmanuel Roche, France