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by karmakaze 1230 days ago
The CP/M machines I've used (z80) weren't so personal. They typically ran off the shelf software. I recall using dBase II on a Xerox machine.

The machines that came with BASIC could be personal (Atari) or business focused (TRS-80) and did make for a good default prompt. Often the storage subsystem needed a DOS-like part not included with Basic which may only have supported cassette data storage out of the box.
1 comments
TedDoesntTalk 1230 days ago
It seemed all of the I/O access on 80s BASIC machines was proprietary or at least not standardized.
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monocasa 1230 days ago
A surprising number of these BASIC interpreters were ports of Microsoft BASIC so there was more consistency than you might think. That's how they made most of their money prior to buying the Quick and Dirty Operating System (QDOS) and turning around to sell it as PC-DOS 1.0.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_BASIC

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karmakaze 1229 days ago
Even the Atari BASIC cartridge/ROM was supposed to be MS BASIC[0] but it didn't fit in the 8K ROM leaving any room for additional interfacing with the machine. MS BASIC was still offered separately.

I'm glad for the Atari version. Although it was less powerful, it was enough taking less space and running faster. An Integer Basic like on the Apple would have been great to have too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Microsoft_BASIC

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