If you experienced an office term processor in the late 1970s, the chances are it ran Digital Research’s CP/M functioning technique. IBM went for Microsoft in the 1980s and the at the time-dominant player fell on really hard times, but it survives now as a common alternative on retrocomputer platforms. Even the more compact Z80 techniques are a little significant for 2022, so when [Kian Ryan] necessary the greatest in CP/M portability it fell on a more contemporary piece of silicon. For this reason he’s put it on a small RP2040-based board from Pimoroni alongside an Adafruit micro SD card breakout.
The tiny components is neat of system, but the authentic star of the exhibit is the program. Non-CP/M aficionados will be intrigued to find out about RunCPM, and for this challenge, RunCPM 2040. This offers an emulated setting on a host microcontroller to run CP/M, permitting the working program to be hosted on easier hardware than some of the unique devices.
All this will make for a tiny enhancement machine, but potentially of much more fascination would be a machine which is all-in-1 with a exhibit and possibly a keyboard. The RP2040 is intriguing in this scenario for the reason that of those programmable point out machines. Could it be designed to run a movie display along with RunCPM? We hope someone has a go at writing it.