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CP/M-86 & MS-DOS Cross Development Environment

This project regroups a simple method to create a cross development environment for CP/M-86. It happens that all DOS based tools can also be used for building DOS programs. This project was developed for myself in a nerdy spirit and for a lot of fun. Just sharing without any guarantees.

Languages supported are:

  • C (K&R and almost ANSI)
  • Assembler
  • Basic

Where to find CP/M-86?

The source for CP/M-86 doc, sources and binaries is http://www.cpm.z80.de.

A cleaned-up distribution and kernel is available at https://github.com/tsupplis/cpm86-kernel. This distribution is working well in virtual environments, patched with all known patches, 'y2k' friendly (it contains the version of tod which sources are in this project) and AT friendly.

Key tools for CP/M-86 development

  • aztec c compiler version 3.4/3.40a (K&R, the CP/M-86 library is provided as c86.lib), patched

  • aztec c compiler version 4.2/4.10d (Almost ANSI, the code for the CP/M-86 library (c86.lib) is patched and recompiled from 3.4 sources, as it is not part of the default compiler package. a dos 1.1 library (d11.lib) is also provided in the same manner), the documentation can be found at (https://www.aztecmuseum.ca/docs/Aztec_C_MSDOS_4.10C_Commercial_Apr88.pdf)

  • rasm86/link86,lib86 DOS version from Digital Research

  • asm86.com and gendef.com from Digital Research

  • cb86.exe and libraries from Digital Reasearch

  • nasm netwide assembler

  • masm, link, asm, exe2bin, hex2bin from Microsoft (the version of masm in this repository has been patched to work with emu2 and other emulators, see https://github.com/tsupplis/pcdos11-hacking for details). asm.com and hex2bin.com have been rebuilt for modified sources at https://github.com/tsupplis/pcdos11-hacking .

  • The Super Cool emu2 DOS emulator to run the DR tools on macOS and Linux (https://github.com/dmsc/emu2). This is an incredible way to bring dos command line development tools to a modern and up to date shell/make/whatever based dev environment. Another stunning emulator. Emu2 and PCE are an incredible pair.

  • We also need to run some cp/m-80 programs, for that, the tinylpo emulator is used (https://gitlab.com/gbrein/tnylpo). It works very well with asm86.com and gencmd.com programs

License Considerations

Script Mapping

All the tools are wrapped in the bin directory for direct usage:

script name program quick description
cpm_asm86 asm86.cmd DR assembler (CP/M-80 tool)
cpm_gencmd gencmd.cmd DR H86 converter (CP/M-80 tool)
pcdev_rasm86 rasm86.exe DR assembler (OBJ)
pcdev_linkcmd linkcmd.exe DR linker for CP/M-86
pcdev_link86 linkcmd.exe " " " " " "
pcdev_linkexe linkexe.exe DR linker for DOS
pcdev_lib86 lib86.exe DR librarian
pcdev_masm masm.exe Microsoft assembler
pcdev_link link.exe Microsoft linker
pcdev_exe2bin exe2bin.exe Microsoft EXE converter
pcdev_hex2bin hex2bin.com Microsoft HEX converter
pcdev_asm asm.com Microsoft/86-DOS assembler
pcdev_cmdinfo cmdinfo.com CMD info tool
pcdev_bin2cmd bin2cmd.com CMD converter
aztec34_as as.exe Aztec Assembler.
aztec34_cc cc.exe Aztec K&R C compiler
aztec34_sqz sqz.exe Aztec C object optimizer
aztec34_link ln.exe Aztec C linker
aztec34_lib lb.exe Aztec C lib
aztec34_ord ord.exe Aztec C library ordering helper
aztec34_obd obd.exe Aztec C object dump
aztec34_hex86 hex86.exe Aztec C H86 generator
aztec42_as as.exe Aztec Assembler.
aztec42_cc cc.exe Aztec ANSI C compiler
aztec42_sqz sqz.exe Aztec C object optimizer
aztec42_link ln.exe Aztec C linker
aztec42_lib lb.exe Aztec C lib
aztec42_ord ord.exe Aztec C library ordering helper
aztec42_obd obd.exe Aztec C object dump
aztec42_hex86 hex86.exe Aztec C H86 generator
drcbcpm_bc cb86.exe DR cbasic compiler for CP/M-86
drcbcpm_link link86.exe DR cbasic linker for CP/M-86
drcbdos_bc cb86.exe DR cbasic compiler for DOS
drcbdos_link linkexe.exe DR cbasic linker for DOS
cpm86 - CP/M-86 emulator
hexcom - HEX to binary translation
doscat - Truncate files beyond ^Z
nasm - Netwide assembler

Fetching the tools

The development environment can be assembled by using the following steps:

./fetch_tools
export PATH=`pwd`/bin

it pulls the following:

Clearing the directory is achieved by:

./clear_tools

Download archive / offline rebuilds

Every file downloaded by fetch_tools (the Aztec, DR, CB86 and NASM archives, but not the git checkouts) is cached under archive/ instead of being deleted.

This keeps the build environment reproducible even if an upstream disappears:

  • If a download fails, fetch_tools falls back to the cached copy in archive/.
  • Set ARCHIVE_FIRST=1 to rebuild entirely from archive/ without touching the network (e.g. offline, or to pin exact versions): 
    ARCHIVE_FIRST=1 ./fetch_tools
  • clear_tools will not remove the archive/, so a cleared tree can always be rebuilt from the local cache.

Testing

The cpm86 tool is a cpm86 emulator for dos pulled with Aztec C. We have reverse engineered it and patch it to fix a few bugs and add some new features. It should not be relied on fully as some bugs surely remain, but it can be experimented with and works for many programs. For build tools DOS/CP/M-80 emulations and DOS/CP/M-80 cross compilations are far better options and proper emulation of CP/M-86 is the best option for testing; PCE is a very good choice (http://www.hampa.ch/pce/).

Note that the enhanced cpm86 emulator supports padding records with EOF instead of NULL which may make working with text files easier, but because this behavior does not match real CP/M-86, it's disabled by default and only enabled if you set CPM86_EOF=1, for example:

env CPM86_EOF=1 cpm86 program.cmd

This may be a next step:

  • automating pce, cpmtools
  • bootable/up-to-date CP/M-86 floppy ...

Docker image

A Dockerfile is provided for this environment. To build the image from the docker directory, jusr run make, alternatively:

docker build --rm=true -t cpm86:latest -f Dockerfile .

to user the created image, just ensure that the local path where the compilation happense ismounted properly:

docker run -it --rm -h cpm86 -v `pwd`:/work -w /work cpm86 pcdev_rasm86 helloa.a86
docker run -it --rm -h cpm86 -v `pwd`:/work -w /work cpm86 aztec34_cc helloc.c

The only difference on the command line happens with ;

pcdev_masm hellod \;

... becomes ...

docker run -it --rm -h cpm86 -v `pwd`:/work -w /work cpm86 pcdev_masm hellod '\\;'

Using the tools

Finally, a simple Makefile with a sample c, assembler for rasm86, assembler for asm86 is provided:

./build_demo

Basic Programs

drcbcpm_bc hellor.bas
drcbcpm_link hellor.cmd=hellor.o
pcdev_cmdinfo hellor.cmd

C Programs

aztec34_cc helloc.c
aztec34_sqz helloc.o
aztec34_link -o helloc.cmd helloc.o -lc86
pcdev_cmdinfo helloc.cmd

if the code is using ANSI syntax ...

aztec42_cc helloc.c
aztec42_sqz helloc.o
aztec42_link -o helloc.cmd helloc.o -lc86
pcdev_cmdinfo helloc.cmd

C runtime startup

aztec34_link/aztec42_link automatically prepend the matching C runtime startup object, so the $begin -> Croot_ -> main -> exit entry/exit code is always present. The startup is selected from the C library you link against:

library target / model startup
-lc86 CP/M-86 small begin86.o
-lc / -lclc MS-DOS small sbegin.o
-lcl / -lcld MS-DOS large lbegin.o

These startup objects are produced from the C libraries by fetch_tools (src/fetch/buildstartups). Without this, Aztec's single-pass ln only pulls the startup from the library on demand, so a program that references no libc symbol — e.g. int main(void){ return 0; } — would link with no startup and crash on exit, and a program that references the startup indirectly (e.g. exit()) could fail to link (Undefined symbol: _exit_) unless the library was ordered with ord or passed twice (-lc86 -lc86). Prepending the startup as a command-line object fixes all of these cases, so neither ord nor a doubled library is needed. To restore the old behaviour set AZTEC_NOSTARTUP=1, or force a specific startup with AZTEC_STARTUP=<obj-in-lib>.

Assembler Programs with rasm86

pcdev_rasm86 helloa.a86 '$' pz sz
pcdev_linkcmd helloa '[$sz]'
pcdev_cmdinfo helloa.cmd

Assembler Programs with asm86

cpm_asm86 hellob.a86
cpm_gencmd hellob.h86
pcdev_cmdinfo hellob.cmd

Assembler Programs with masm

pcdev_masm hellod \;
pcdev_link hellod \;
pcdev_exe2bin hellod.exe
pcdev_bin2cmd hellod.bin hellod.cmd

Assembler Programs with nasm

nasm hellon.asm -fbin -o hellon.bin 
pcdev_bin2cmd hellon.bin hellon.cmd

You can build a native unix/dos version of bin2cmd/cmdinfo from (https://github.com/tsupplis/cpm86-cmdtools)

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CP/M-86 cross development environment

Topics

c asm os cpm vintage cpm22 ccpm cpm86

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v1.5 Latest
May 24, 2026
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