Re: "Innovation"


"Brian Moelk" wrote
>
> They purchased what was to be known as MS-DOS from a guy for 50k IIRC.
>

I remember those olden times rather well, I was a Digital Research (DR) beta
tester for their command shell and during the time in question DR was totally
focused on transforming CP/M into MP/M (shortly to became CCP/M). Both CP/M and
MP/M were aimed at the 8080/8085 16 bit CPU. A hardware company named Seattle
Computing (SC) started producing one of the very first 32 bit 8086 CPU S-100
boards. They wanted DR to furnish a 32 bit CP/M but DR was too busy with MP/M
and with little incentive since there was almost no 8088/8086 CPU on the market
so they put SC off. But SC wanted to be parlay their new board to capture a
large market share of the future but had no OS and hence no market.

So the SC guy, named Tim Patterson, took the CP/M OS which came with ASM source
and a set of manuals that explained how to adapt the source for your specific
hardware and he brewed his own 32 bit version of 16 bit CP/M and it got to be
known as QDOS (a Quick & Dirty Operating System).

About this time Intel told IBM to go to DR for an OS and to MS for BASIC for
their new 8088 machine, later to be known as the PC. In those days companies
like DR were a bit strange and quaint, to say the least. Gary Kildall was the
ex-Intel genius that started DR and together with his wife ran the company.
There are many different stories as to why the IBM and DR talks failed but who
really knows. So IBM asked Microsoft "Mr.Gates, what the hell do we do now" and
Bill Gates answered "no sweat Mr. Blue, I'll happily furnish both BASIC and the
OS". He went across town and struck a deal with Tim Paterson for his 32 bit
CP/M look alike. And QDOS was bifurcated into PC-DOS for IBM and MS-DOS for
other Microsoft customers. Thus Microsoft was suddenly set to conquer the world.

I'm not sure if anyone knows exactly what Tim Paterson received from MS for
QDOS, some seem to think it was in the range of $50-75,000. Needless to say that
over the ensuing years most pundits spoke of how stupid Patterson had been to
sell out so dirt cheap. Years later Microsoft was constantly bitching about
unlicensed copies of MS-DOS and then it turned out that Patterson hadn't been
all that stupid after all. He had retained a non-exclusive license right for his
own use and when SC no longer sold their hardware board Patterson became a busy
fellow selling legal licenses of MS-DOS to anyone who came down the pike. When
Microsoft bought out that non-exclusive right from Paterson he made a small
fortune and became yet another millionaire produced be Bill Gates' innovation.




.

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