I got permission to send to all my friends, since everyone
on HP3000-L is my friend...

The Engineers and Computer geeks among you should appreciate this.
Reprinted by permission from HPChronicle (paragraph spacing added.)
This appears to be the pre-publication original, so there may be edited
differences from HPChronicle:

Windows NT vs. CP/M

Microsoft has recently generated a number of benchmarks and comparison
papers championing the fact that Windows NT is much better than Linux. I
find such comparisons fascinating, but rather than rehash this argument,
I've decided to create my own comparison. Not of Windows NT vs. Linux;
that's been done. But of Windows NT vs. CP/M.

CP/M, for those of you who don't remember, was one of the first portable
operating systems. It ran on 8-bit 8080-class hardware and was a
single-user, floppy-based system. (Later versions could actually access
a hard drive.)

Two systems were selected for this comparison. The CP/M system is a
Kaypro-II with a 2-MHz Z80 processor, 64KB of memory and dual 360-KB
5.25-inch floppies. The Windows NT system runs four 500-MHz Pentium III
processors, with 2GB of memory and 1TB of disk space. This particular
configuration was chosen because Microsoft seems to like to use a system
like this for all its benchmark comparisons.

Performance

Performance is one key issue in any comparison. I do a lot of writing,
so word processing performance is extremely important to me. After a
15-second boot, the CP/M system with Word* let me write documents as
fast as I could type. In my two-minute test, I could enter about 210
words.

The Windows NT system running Microsoft Word also could accept input as
fast as I could type, but it took a whole minute to boot up. Thus I
could enter only 120 words in my test. So we can conclude that CM/P is
75 percent faster than Windows NT for word processing.

Let's talk about spreadsheet performance. CP/M with Calc* will balance
my checkbook just as fast as I can input the data. Counting the boot
time, that means that I can enter about 17 transactions in a two-minute
test. With Windows NT and Microsoft Excel, I get only 10 transactions in
two minutes. So as far as spreadsheet performance goes, CP/M is 70
percent faster than Windows NT.

Conclusion: CP/M provides superior overall performance for common office
applications.

Security

CP/M is an extremely secure system. It relies on the physical security
methodology. You store the operating systems, programs and private data
on 5.25-inch floppies. If you want to use them, put them in the machine.
No one can get to your data from the outside through a network because
CP/M has no network. If you want to secure your data, take the floppies
out and lock them up. If you want to share data, hand the floppies to
another person. Note: This security method allows the user a wide
variety of personal authentication schemes, such as driver's license,
passport or personal friendship.

Windows NT relies on file system security and passwords. There have been
many studies about the weaknesses of passwords. Any system that relies
on passwords is insecure. In addition, Windows NT has a tremendous
security hole called the Administrator account. Anyone logged in to this
account can easily read and write all your files.

Add to this that Windows NT connects to a network and allows remote
access, and you have big security problems. Hundreds of reported
security problems, such as e-mail viruses, break-ins, denial of service
attacks and many others, have been reported for Windows NT. None of
these problems have affected CP/M.

Microsoft likes to trumpet the fact that Windows NT is certified by the
government for C3 security. What it leaves out is that the certification
was only for a certain version of Windows NT (which Microsoft no longer
supports) and a certain hardware configuration (which had no network
card). In the real world, a typical Windows NT installation would never
come close to getting C3 certification.

CP/M, however, could easily be certified. It has a very secure network,
because it has no network capability. It also has a set of keys that you
can press that return you to the "secure command server." (It's called
the reset button.) These are the big features of C3 security, and CP/M
has them. The reason that it does not have C3 certification is that no
one wants to pay the big bucks to get CP/M certified.

Conclusion: The security of CP/M is vastly superior to Windows NT.

[A CP/M computer in a locked room with an access control record at the
door could be certified A1.  (As well as any other computer with no
outside connection.)... Tracy]

Stability

As far as I know, the CP/M system for my Kaypro has not needed an
upgrade or patch for the past ten years. Also the operating system has
no reported bugs that can crash it. It is small, simple and very stable.

During that time, Microsoft has had two major releases of Windows NT and
six service packs of the current version, and is planning on replacing
the OS with a new version next year. In addition, Windows NT has a large
number of bugs that Microsoft has yet to fix. Many companies reboot
their Windows NT systems weekly to avoid system crashes that come when
Windows NT is left running for too long.

Conclusion: CP/M is much more stable than Windows NT.

Cost of ownership

You can probably pick up a Kaypro-II with CP/M, Word* and Calc* at a
garage sale for about $10. Or you can go to an auction site and pick one
up for about $100 to $200.

On the other hand, a Windows NT system in the configuration that
Microsoft likes to use for benchmarking will probably cost you about
$100,000. This includes the price of the hardware and software and the
cost of hiring a team of Microsoft Engineers for three months to tune
your system for optimal performance.

Conclusion: The cost of ownership of CP/M is much, much lower than
Windows NT.

These results show that in every comparison category, CP/M is at least
as good as Windows NT and frequently outperforms the Microsoft operating
system.

Another conclusion we can draw from this is that if you come up with the
answer, a good writer can come up with a question that produces the
desired result. Comparisons like this one should always be scrutinized
for relevance and bias before you put any faith in them.

Coming soon, we will compare a Windows NT system with a brick. I'm not
going to give away the ending, but I'm going to bet that the brick will
win.

Steve Oualline is author of "Practical C Programming" (O'Reilly &
Associates), "C Elements of Style" (M&T Books) and "Windows Programming
with Borland" (M&T Books). He can be reached at [log in to unmask] or
through www.oualline.com .

--

Carole McMichael
Editor, Professional Graphics World, HP Chronicle
579 N. Valley Mills Dr., Ste. 3
Waco, TX 76710
254-399-0738; F: 254-399-6651
[log in to unmask]

--
BT
NNNN
Tracy Johnson
Justin Thyme Productions
Sponsors Empire on the WEB at:
http://198.190.228.6/