CP/M
Shares rank 47 of 87 operating systems by recommenders
Early 8-bit operating system, comparable to MS-DOS and widely supported on Z80 machines; critics say CP/M-86 came out late and its tools and command interpreter were weak.
Early 8-bit operating system, comparable to MS-DOS and widely supported on Z80 machines; critics say CP/M-86 came out late and its tools and command interpreter were weak.
18 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 11
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 61%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Capable, comparable to MS-DOS
“It was basically equivalent to MS-DOS in capability”
Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: I spent 3 years reverse-engineering a 40 yo stock market sim from 1986” “I'm pretty sure C/PM 86 was already a thing”
Comment from 3 Aug 2026 in “CP/M-386 – CP/M for 386 protected mode, derived from CP/M‑68K” Well liked on Z80 systems
“CP/M was great on Z80 systems.”
Comment from 30 May 2026 in “GitHub bans security researcher who posted zero-day Windows exploits” “I'm particularly fond of CP/M”
Comment from 11 Mar 2026 in “Lotus 1-2-3 on the PC with DOS”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Weak tools and command interpreter
“Instead you ended up with things cp/m and dos. fine enough I guess but their command interpreter sort of sucks”
Comment from 4 Jun 2026 in “Summer of '85: DOSBOS is rejected by ANALOG Computing” “the tools and documentation were bad to the point where most machines had Z80 processors”
Comment from 25 Mar 2026 in “What Happened to Gem?” “CP/M and DOS were indeed pretty weak”
Comment from 6 Jun 2026 in “Summer of '85: DOSBOS is rejected by ANALOG Computing” Faded, little lasting role
“completely un-necessary on a proper microcomputer which has the OS in ROM”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “50 years ago, a young Bill Gates took on the 'software pirates'” “CP/M was headed for the dustbin at the high end”
Comment from 19 Apr 2026 in “Archive of Byte magazine, starting with issue #1 in 1975” “CP/M never played a meaningful role ever.”
Comment from 4 Jan 2026 in “The Late Arrival of 16-Bit CP/M – By Nemanja Trifunovic” CP/M-86 released very late
“CP/M-86 was badly late: it followed over three years after the release of the 8086”
Comment from 7 Jan 2026 in “The Late Arrival of 16-Bit CP/M – By Nemanja Trifunovic” “CP/M-86 was horribly horribly late”
Comment from 15 Dec 2025 in “In the Beginning was the Command Line (1999)”
Other operating systems people recommend
The four most recommended other operating systems, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 87 operating systems, rankedWhat people said
20 of the 21 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“It's the only way to be sure.”
“CP/Ms big problem was that the disk formats weren't the same between machines”
“I don't want to just quibble for the fun of it but so much more of this is wrong than right that it's downright misleading.”
“Light years ahead of MS-DOS but nobody wanted it”
“I'm pretty sure C/PM 86 was already a thing”
“CP/M was an absolute beast in the era, with massive installed base and software support”
“CP/M and DOS were indeed pretty weak”
“CP/M 3.0 did bank-switched memory, so the graphics were switched out and you could copy the user-space utilities in to a RAM disk on startup”
“Instead you ended up with things cp/m and dos. fine enough I guess but their command interpreter sort of sucks”
“CP/M was great on Z80 systems.”
“They created CP/M (and by extension DOS)”
“CP/M was headed for the dustbin at the high end”
“the tools and documentation were bad to the point where most machines had Z80 processors”
“I'm particularly fond of CP/M”
“It was basically equivalent to MS-DOS in capability”
“completely un-necessary on a proper microcomputer which has the OS in ROM”
“CP/M-86 was badly late: it followed over three years after the release of the 8086”
“CP/M never played a meaningful role ever.”
“made a beautiful compiler for a new language to build their version 2”
“CP/M-86 was horribly horribly late”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.