The Z80 might be decades obsolete and a few years out of production, but it’s absolutely a case of “gone but not forgotten” in the hacker world. Case in point is SymbOS, a multitasking OS for Z80 machines by Amstrad, Sinclair, and the MSX2 family of computers that updated to version 4.0 earlier this year.
The best way to describe SymbOS is like looking at an alternate reality where Microsoft created Windows 95 ten years early to put on the MSX instead of the BASIC they were paid to provide. SymbOS 4.0 comes even further into alignment with that design language, with a new file explorer that looks a lot like Windows Explorer replacing (or supplementing) the earlier Midnight Commander style utility in version 3.
Thanks to the preemptive multitasking, you can listen to tracker music while organizing files and writing documents, and even play a port of DOOM. Chat with your friends on IRC while watching (low res) videos on SymboVid. If you’re looking for productivity, all the old business software written for CP/M can run in a virtual machine. There’s even an IDE if you can stand the compile times on what is, we have to remember, an 8-bit, 1980s machine. It’s hard to remember that while watching the demo video embedded below.
The operating system supports up to 1024 KB of RAM (in 64 KB chunks, of course) and file systems up to 2 TB, which is an absolutely bonkers amount of space for this era’s machines. One enterprising dev has even got his CPC talking to ChatGPT, if that’s your jam. You can try SymbOS for free online on an MSX emulator, or toss it onto a spare Raspberry Pi. If you’re feeling adventurous, there’s a port in the works for the Isetta TLL retrocomputer.
This isn’t the first modern OS we’ve featured for the Z80, the processor which will live forever in our hearts and tapeouts.
Thanks to [Manuel] for the tip.
SymbOS looks neat, but is clearly requires for big “Super-Z80” systems with fancy color graphics. It requires a minimum of 128K banked RAM and would really like 356K, plus lots of drive space. (Kind of like the minimum requirements for the first version of Windows kept growing bigger and bigger than the first PCs. Any graphical windowing system gets memory-hungry.) Also, it’s not open source although it is free.
The latest version of Zeal, linked, is actually more interesting because one version can even run in RAM less than 64K, although it can use banked RAM. Of course it’s more limited and doesn’t try for multithreading, CP/M emulation, or any graphics at all. It is open source.
Going from a single-task OS to a multitasking one is going to require more RAM by definition, so that comparison isn’t particularly fair. And RAM expansions might not have been common back in the day, but now they’re trivial to acquire and cheap.
And SymbOS can handle whatever graphics hardware you have, even going back to a simple text console if necessary – it is a true OS, not just a graphical shell. But seriously, “fancy colour graphics”? This isn’t 1978.
There’s no competition between Zeal and SymbOS and there shouldn’t be. Play with whatever grabs your interest, or don’t.
“And RAM expansions might not have been common back in the day, but now they’re trivial to acquire and cheap.”
I’m not entirely sure if that was the case.
Especially back in the 80s, there had been a lot of electronic hobbyists, radio amateurs, SWLs and hackers.
Having a soldering iron, cables and spare switches at home was just normal for people with such hobbies.
It wasn’t being too uncommon to upgrade Amiga or Atari STs, for example.
Home computer magazines of the time were full of modifications of all sorts.
Especially RAM upgrades were common on 16-Bit systems or very limited 8-bitters such as ViC20, ZX81 etc.
Because programs and games became more and more sophisticated and users had to keep up with it.
I think you’re arguing a completely different point and thinking far too late. We’re talking the 8-bit computers of the late 70’s and early 80’s here. RAM expansions weren’t rare (depends on the platform) but they certainly weren’t cheap.
PCs and the 16-bitters came in progressively as time went on for the wealthy but the 8-bit market was still the only affordable option for a lot of people until the early 90’s.
Zero RAM upgrades in the 70s? Really? 😮
That was the heyday of my father’s electronic tinkerings.
He told me endless stories about how he built CP/M computers (from scratch) on Europa cards or about his Sharp computer.
I can’t imagine him not having upgraded to full 48 KB of RAM (on his Sharp), for CP/M’s wake .
Because his Sharp MZ-80K was from 1978/1979 era and didn’t have full memory expansion as standard yet.
It were 20 KB in original configuration, merely, which left little memory to CP/M applications.
Even 48 KB wasn’t “great” by an means.. Close to 64 KB was more reasonable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp_MZ
“PCs and the 16-bitters came in progressively as time went on for the wealthy”
Or other way round. Depends on point of view, I guess.
I know of a fellow who said that he’s too poor for bad tools.
To those who were working, a proper computer was a serious piece of equipment rather than a toy.
it was a long-time investment rather, something that pays off over time, too.
So especially the “poor” have had no money to waste on something limited.
Those with their underpowered home computers were family users/home users who had computers for joy, to play games.
They had no obligation to have to have a serious configuration, undetstandably.
Where did I say that? Maybe take a breath and actually read what you’re responding to before you go off half-cocked. You’ve just spewed out multiple paragraphs arguing against a position I didn’t take.
@pelrun “Where did I say that ?”
Sorry, I must been reading between the lines here.
SymbOS will happily run in 1-bit color mode, depending on the hardware, but yeah, it’s a lot heftier than Zeal. That’s only to be expected considering what it can do.
It certainly does restrict it, hardware-wise.
SymbOS should rather be compared to MP/M or CP/Net than CP/M 2.2, I think.
Even the later CP/M 3 (CP/M Plus) had used bank-switching and was meant for > 64KB systems such as Commodore 128D.
Besides, if you look closely, MSX2 computers had more than 128KB of main RAM, often.
“People tend to stick to 256kB main RAM as unofficial standard.”
That’s in addition to 128KB of video RAM.
Source: https://www.msx.org/wiki/MSX2
Surely you mean 1024 kB of RAM, not “1024kb of RAM”. Though a megabit of RAM was still a hefty (and expensive!) amount in 1980.
Surely I did. Fixed!
And yes, it would have been absurd in 1980 for home use in 1980– 6,480 USD, according to this source. That’s over 25 grand today. That said, the system is “up to 1024 kB of RAM” — I don’t have hardware to try it, but if I’m reading their site right it should run on an Amstrad CPC, which has only 128K.
Technically it can mostly start up on a base 128K CPC, but you just can’t do very much with it.
Can or could you do much with a base 128K CPC, anyway?
I would assume that good games and applications wanted more RAM.
I haven’t have one, but I had a Sinclair ZX81 once.
And without the memory pak, only a few programs ran.
The classic “3D Monster Maze” needed 16K, for example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAM_pack
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_Monster_Maze
facepalm
Just because the ZX81 (sold with only ONE KILOBYTE of ram I might add) couldn’t run much without a ram expansion, it doesn’t mean that the CPC also needed one. It has one hundred and twenty eight times more memory!
@Pelrun “facepalm”
🤷♂️
I’m more familiar with the PCW line, which was sold as Schneider Joyce over here.
And it had 256KB or 512KB of RAM, rather than 128 KB.
Kilobyte used to be abbreviated in several ways, I think.
There were users which wrote 128 K instead of 128 KB, for example.
The “K” usually was in upper case, to distinguish it from kilobit (“k”).
But that being said, aren’t we supposed to say “KiB” by now? Kibibyte? ;)
Yes, you could invent your own abbreviations, and give people the joy of solving a puzzle. Or you could use a standard abbreviation, forcing your reader to suffer a more boring, less ambiguous life.
I see. Just like there’s English (BE) and English (simplified), right?
Or Noah Webster’s perversions of the language.
vive la différence but don’t let it hinder communication. For example, what is “English (BE)” Basic English? Bastardized English? Beginner English? British Empire? Even in context it’s ambiguous.
@Paul I guess this soon doesn’t really matter anymore.
We soon find ourself learning Chinese, I guess.
There aren’t that many hackers left that can work on that level. Insane and amazing achievement Absolutely nuts.
BIOS writers.
Sure wish the C64 back in the day could have had a speedy multitasking OS like that!
One thing that’s left me puzzled is, how did these old systems ever integrate to any sort of useful workflow? I personally started using computers when it was all PCs with Windows 3.11 for Workgroups and the rest had pretty much fallen by the wayside.
Like, you’re using an Amstrad with GEM, and some other guy is on a C64, and a third guy is hacking on an early Apple machine – nobody’s got any sort of software compatibility, file formats don’t match, even the physical interfaces like cassettes or floppies don’t match and there’s no practical way to get data from one machine to the other. In the best case you have a dot matrix printer so you can at least do something, like print out your own cookie recipes, but keeping your cookbook in your computer seems pretty contrived.
What did you actually manage to do with these machines, besides playing games?
3-wire null-modem cable and terminal program or basic Kermit program?
It surely needed level RS232/TTL conversion at one point (some transistors).
For PC-C64, for example.
Also, there were programs for data exchange.
The Macintosh had Apple File Exchange/PC Exchange, which did write DOS files on a 3,5″ floppy (and vice versa).
For DOS, there was Teledisk and some Mac specific utilities that would read/write Mac floppies.
The Atari ST could use MS-DOS formatted floppies out-of-box.
TOS 1.04 (Rainbow TOS) even switched the formatting routine to a more DOS compatible method.
Amiga had PC bridgeboards, which also supported file transfer between PC side and Amiga side.
The 1541 Commodore floppy drives had an IEC serial port (and internal parallel port)
and there was Star Commander for DOS in the 90s that allowed using them on PC.
Not sure how it was done in the 1980s, though.
Before the last two decades where everyone does everything online, everyone’s interaction with the world was predominantly face-to-face, on paper, or on the phone. Data transfer was done on paper, because the world ran on paper.
You had to keep track of your own financial and personal records, and you had to write letters and keep receipts and balance your chequebook. A word-processor, a spreadsheet, and a printer made those tasks easier. You typed in your data yourself, and if you needed to give it to someone else, you printed it out and gave them that.
Nope. Not for my father, at least. He used X.25 pads since the 1970s.
– We still have printouts on endless paper here, with the connection dates.
There was Datex-P in my country, which was an X.25 provider commonly used in business and at university.
A serial, 80 column ASCII terminal (-VT52 or VT100 was better-) and an 300/1200 Baud acoustic coupler was all it needed.
Then there was BTX service shortly after (our country’s Minitel counterpart).
He went online shopping via PC in late 80s, already.
In the US, CompuServe must been common at the time.
Because PC public domain software from the 80s usually shipped with a readme file.
And in this readme file, there was a CompuServe e-mail address mentioned in most cases.
Or Nifty address, if it was of Japanese origin.
“Data transfer was done on paper, because the world ran on paper.”
Hi, did you ever wonder youself how ATMs in whole world did communicate with the banks?
It wasn’t via paper or ordinary dial-up connection.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.25#Worldwide_public_data_networks
Wow, you’re young. Did you ever wonder how the world operated before computers, or do you think business was invented only in the 1950’s?
Thank you. Hm. I’d like to ask my grand grandfather about it, he was born 1904 or so.
Unfortunately, he passed a way a few decades ago. 😟
He was always being interested in new technologies, by the way.
Got a TV and a telephone among the first where he lived..
BBS!
Controlling telescopes!
Numerical modelling!
Digital data logging!
Digital image processing!
Laboratory instrument control!
And even plain old writing.
And that newfangled “spreadsheet” thing too (Visicalc).
Games? pshaw! Who had time for that?
I’m sure users with brains played a fine game of chess.
Or enjoyed demanding interactive fiction (Infocom)..
Is “Can it run WordStar?” the new “Can it run D00m?”