forum.defence-force.org

I'm curious;Almost every 8-bit computer has MS-Dos on board, but usually in a different form and with a different command set. Are there any sources on why this is so? Did the manufacturers order it that way or did Microsoft deliver it differently on its own initiative?

On this site they say:

Apparently, Microsoft had a master implementation for some processor — real or imagined — and could translate from that code to 8088, Z-80, 6502, or any other processor they wanted to target.

I felt on this repo with the MS BASIC for 6502:

https://github.com/brajeshwar/Microsoft ... -Code-1978

That is really interesting. But how came that most of the computers of that time have a slightly different set of vocabulary?

Having cut my teeth as a coder in those days I can tell you from recollection why we always had these kinds of customized systems .. Because each system had its own hardware designers and they had ideas for what the machine could do, but the software guys either had to have mad skills (Oric/Spectrum/BBC) to keep up with the hardware design while providing a great BASIC (or not, i.e. C64) - or license MS BASIC (or not-license..) - and then add extensions for whatever features were new in the hardware design, sometimes haphazardly and other times superlatively. And then there were outliers such as Amstrad.

The MSX effort, was an industry response to try to reduce the costs of these kinds of things by having a much broader definition for machine-specific commands, while expanding the core BASIC and onboard capabilities to a common standard.

This all kind of fizzog'ed when MSDOS (proper, x86 kind) hit the scene and killed the retro platforms.

But, the same thing happened with CP/M, by the way, which predated MSDOS. Making unique hardware meant having unique software - or not. The C64 approach (bollocks, just use POKE's, people) seemed to, after all, have had the most impact ..

Yes, that is also my guess, that each manufacturer adapted the BASIC for their computer to the respective capabilities.