MP/M
MP/M is the multi user CP/M system from Digital Research and is able to run 8 programs at the same time, with up to 48k of free memory for each program. Let's see if we can run it on the propeller chip:
At the bottom of the board is the VGA connector, keyboard, SD card and ribbon cable to a 20x4 LCD display. Along the top are two serial ports and the DC power supply.
This is a screenshot running a program called WINP. You can run a BASCIC and a C program at the same time.
This little program is called BABEL and it has been written to enable communication between MP/M users, as well as to translate data to and from packets for wireless transmission. There is a list of devices and they can be connected up in various ways. For intance, the keyboard is connected to user 4. And in a different thread, user 4 is connected to the LCD display. So what you type on the keyboard appears on the little display - very useful for a computer out in the field where there isn't room for a big VGA display.
Steps to set this up
1) Build the board (see other pages on this website for detailed instructions)
2) Progam the propeller with this software (run BST).
3) Take a blank sd card (or reformat it), unzip the files here and copy them to the card. Boot into CP/M and then run MP/M.
4) If you want MPM to work with the local keyboard, in the program CPM.SPIN, on line 31 is this
#define USER0_PS2_VGA
Leave this as it is. However, if you want to download new files from a terminal program or the vb.net N8VEM program, edit the line above to:
'#define USER0_PS2_VGA
CP/M will boot up with the signon message going to the PC's terminal program (the VGA display will stay blank).
As of August 2010, the next step is to get boards talking to each other. The active software discussion thread on the Propeller forum is here http://forums.parallax.com/forums/default.aspx?f=25&p=1&m=443640 and the hardware thread is here http://forums.parallax.com/forums/default.aspx?f=25&p=001&m=405722 Total cost of a board is around $50. Please contact me on moxhamj@internode.on.net if you would like some boards ($20 for 3 including shipping, less for less boards). Schematics etc are on the Propeller page, and you can even build one from scratch if you like (one person has done this with his own 'iron on' PCB patterm). Everything is open source and the CP/M and MP/M projects are collaborative efforts from people all over the world.
Keywords: MPM MP/M CPM CP/M Z80 Digital Research James Moxham Gary Kildall comp.os.cpm Altair SIMH Propeller Emulation Wireless Network