🚀 go-pugleaf

>>>>> "Fast" == Fast Eddie <fladung@emf.net> writes:

Fast> south@speakeasy.org (Scott Soderstrom) wrote:
>> In article <30EAA8DD.2640@Valley.Net>, Ric Messier
>> <Ric.Messier@Valley.Net> wrote:

>>> John Long wrote:
>>> 
>>> > Of course, their *real* "killer app" was MSDOS, for a major hardware
>>> > introduction.
>>> > 
>>> 
>>> I know this isn't strictly relevant to the discussion but it Microsoft 
>>> just generally pisses me off because they have taken over the market 
>>> with clearly inferior products. The worst thing is, that first 'killer 
>>> app' wasn't even theirs. It belonged to Digital Research and Microsoft 
>>> bought it out just in time to license it to IBM. Good marketing strategy 

Fast> Digital Research wrote CP/M which was the predecessor to MS-DOS.
Fast> Microsoft bought MS-DOS from someone else. Also, Digital Research was
Fast> the prefered vendor that IBM wanted to buy the OS from but they blew
Fast> it and Mr. Bill grabbed the opportunity.

Not quite.  According to the "MS-DOS Technical Reference Encyclopedia," in
the section titled "The Historical View," Tim Paterson of Seattle
Computer Products began work on a CP/M-like OS which he called 86-DOS.
This was done because CP/M-86 was not ready, nor did it do the things
Tim wanted.  This was started in April, 1980.

In August, 1980, Microsoft signed a consulting agreement with IBM.
Originally IBM wanted Microsoft to write a ROM BASIC for an 8-bit
computer they were designing, and to finish it before April, 1981.
Microsoft convinced them to go to 16-bit.  IBM later added requests for
FORTRAN, Pascal, and COBOL; all in the same time frame.  At this point
Bill Gates suggested to Jack Sams (The IBM rep) that in order to run
those languages, they would need an operating system.  Gates suggested
that Jack call Digital Research (the makers of CP/M-86).

IBM went to Digital Research the next day, but Digital Research was
nervous about IBM's non-disclosure requirements and the meeting never got
off the ground.

Microsoft wanted to write the languages, all of them.  In order to do
that in the six-month time limit, they needed some assurances about the
operating system.  They estimated that to write the languages they were
looking at 400k of code.  To do the OS too would only add another 30k.
They had just seen Paterson's rudimentary OS (he had come to Microsoft
to ask them to write a ROM BASIC for 86-DOS), and they knew exactly
where it stood.

   It was Sunday night, September 28, 1980.  Gates and [Paul] Allen were
   in Gates' office on the eighth floor of the Old National Bank
   Building in Bellevue.  They were reviewing all the facts with Kay
   Nishi, a Microsoft vice president and president of ASCII Corp. in
   Japan, who was preparing the proposal for IBM.

   The more they talked about it, the more it seemed possible--even
   preferable--to write their own operating system.  Finally Nishi got
   up and said, "Let's do it!  We've got to do it!"

					[The Historical View from
				         the MS-DOS Technical Reference
					 Encyclopedia, Page 11]

At this point Allen contacted Tim Paterson at Seattle Computer Products.
He told them of the plans, and arranged to purchase the rights to
86-DOS.  With 86-DOS in hand, Microsoft submitted it's proposal to IBM
in October 1980.  IBM signed in November 1980.

Work progressed in improving 86-DOS to fulfill the contract.  A
prototype machine was delivered from IBM to Microsoft at Thanksgiving
time in 1980.  The OS first ran on the prototype in February 1981.  In
August of 1981, IBM announced the first IBM PC, and MS-DOS 1.0 was
unleashed upon the world.

BTW, I've seen several comments about EDLIN being a Microsoft product.
Actually EDLIN was written by Tim Paterson for 86-DOS for his *own
personal use*.  If he had known how many people would come to use EDLIN,
I wonder what he would have done differently.  ;-)
--
Mark Galbraith                          Senior UNIX Engineer/Postmaster
PGP Key (E3468605) = 1C B9 74 81 AD 5C 57 09    69 0B AC 09 7F 65 D6 F6
"Those that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin (1773)