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Subject:Re: Old PC Technology From:John Garison <john -at- garisons -dot- com> To:"Poshedly, Ken" <PoshedlyK -at- polysius -dot- com> Date:Thu, 08 Mar 2007 10:51:20 -0500
This is a great thread ... takes me back to my first days (early 70s) in
the computer biz. Cut my teeth writing manuals using hard-copy terminal
(video displays were still in the future) and IBM C-Script ... which
later made HTML easy to grok as both are essentially formating
languages. I worked on a couple of PC-like creatures for Wang Labs in
the early 80s ... and regard WordStar fondly.
Anyway, the story about the demise of CP/M is a bit different as I
recall my early computing history. Apparently the IBM guys preferred
CP/M and went to see Gary Kimball (the guy who wrote it). But he had
gone out surfing or paragliding or something that day, and they talked
to his wife. They gave her a sheaf of non-disclosure forms, and all
sorts of legal stuff that they said she had to sign before they would
say word one about why they were there. She refused. They got tired of
waiting for Gary to show, so they went to see this Bill Gates guy who
snapped up someone else's work for a song ($50K for Quick and Dirty DOS)
and sold it to IBM, but reserved the rights to use it and sell it to
others. IBM, who only saw the hardware as a profit item, allowed him to
do so ... and the rest is history ...
John G
Poshedly, Ken wrote:
> Yeee-Haw!!!
> Anyway, the story of the demise of CP/M - again confirmed to me by many
> others in the computer industry over many years - shows how it pays to
> be on time, because you just don't know HOW you can really screw things
> up. The story I heard is that around 1980, IBM was deciding on an
> operating system for its line of personal computers and had invited a
> rep from Microsoft, which was pushing its "Disk Operating System" called
> "DOS", and a rep from Digital Research which offered CP/M, to a lunch
> for each rep to pitch their own product. While the MS guy was there and
> on time, the Digital guy supposedly decided to be "fashionably late"
> (look it up - I don't know what else to call his decision). So the IBM
> guy and MS guy had lunch and waited and waited and waited and . . .
> well, today, it's a Microsoft world, apparently no thanks to the Digital
> Research guy who wanted to play hard ball and make 'em wait.
>
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