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Re: Gary Kildall, dead at age 52

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On Wednesday, July 13, 1994 at 3:51:52 PM UTC-7, Greg Limes wrote:
> In article <davidson-1...@162.49.74.63>,
> Mark E. Davidson <davi...@pdsc.com> wrote:
> >The local (Monterey, CA) paper had an obituary for Gary Kildall ...
> The San Jose Mercury News ran his obit at the bottom right corner
> of the front page and continued on the back page as follows; typos
> are of course my fault. Reproduced without permission.
> PC pioneer Kildall dies in Monterey
> By Rory J. O'Connor
> Mercury News Staff Writer
> Kildall lost to Gates with IBM
> Personal computer giant remembered for deal he didn't make
> Personal computer pioneer Gary Kildall, who but for a single
> failed business deal might have enjoyed the wealth and fame of
> Bill Gates, died Monday night in a Monterey hospital at age
> 52.
> Kildall was admitted late Sunday to the Community Hospital of
> the Monterey Peninsula. He died around 9 p.m. Monday, said Jean
> Tierney, the hospital's administrative supervisor. She said
> the hospital did not know the cause of death.
> Kildall apparently was taken to the hospital after suffering a
> concussion in a fall, said Thomas Rolander, a longtime friend
> and former business associate of Kildall. While an autopsy
> report is still incomplete, Rolander said evidence indicates
> Kildall suffered a fatal heart attack. It is unclear if the
> two conditions were related.
> Kildall's career spans the history of the personal computer,
> which he was instrumental in popularizing in the 1970s.
> "Gary's technical contributions in the beginning days of
> microcomputing were order-of-magnitude enhancements to the
> capabilities with which we were working," said Jim Warren, a
> Woodside consultant who played a key role in early
> microcomputing. "The were enhancements both in technical power
> and in equitable consumer-oriented pricing and support
> practices."
> In 1972, Kildall was an associate professor of computer science
> at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey and a
> consultant for Intel Corp., which the year before had created
> the world's first microprocessor chip. Kildall wrote a version
> of the PL/I programming language that worked on the chip, the
> Intel 4004. A year later, frustrated with the difficulty of
> making the 4004 work with disk drives and other computer
> components, he wrote the first personal computer operating
> system.
> A PC Breakthrough
> The program, called Control Program for Micro-Computers and
> shortened to CP/M, offered hobbyists a way to use their
> microcomputers, as they were then called, in the same way as
> larger minicomputers and mainframes. Before, the computers were
> programmed in laborious ways, like flipping switches on the
> front panel of the machines. With CP/M, they could type
> instructions on a keyboard, store data on a floppy disk or tape
> recorder and view results on a screen or printer.
> Digital Research, the company started in 1976 by Kildasll and
> his first wife, Dorth McEwen, sold CP/M for $75 each. Kildall,
> who disliked business, said in a 1981 interview that he hoped
> "just to support my computer habits" with the proceeds.
> But the typical minicomputer operating system at the time sold
> for at least $10,000, and Intel's own operating system for
> microcomputers cost $800. CP/M soon became the standard
> operating system for personal computers, which could be bought
> for as little as a thousand dollars. By 1981, Kildall was one
> of the best known figures in the $2 billion personal computer
> business, and his $10 million company had sold 250,000 copies
> of CP/M.
> Negotiated with IBM
> However, Kildall is probably best remembered for being on the
> losing end of one of the biggest deals in computer history.
> In 1980, IBM contacted Digital Research, hoping to persuatde it
> to produce a new version of CP/M for the personal computer IBM
> was secretly developing. Kildall didn't think much of IBM"s
> chances but met with the company anyway.
> "IBM wanted to take the market away from Apple, and they looked
> at them and saw that the SoftCard (a CP/M add-in card for the
> Apple II) was an important part of it," Kildall said in a 1991
> interview.
> Negotiations went badly, Rolander said. IBM wanted Digital
> Research to sign a non-disclosure agreement but refused to sign
> one in return. IBM wanted to pay a flat fee for CP/M, with no
> royalties, and change the software's name.
> Silicon Valley legend has it that Kildall, a passionate private
> pilot, missed a crucial meeting because he decided to go flying
> instead. While Kildall did fly that morning, Rolander said, he
> attended the afternoon meeting.
> IBM decided to hedge its bets. During a visit to tiny
> Microsoft Corp., to obtain a version of its BASIC programming
> language, IBM inquired if the company also could provide an
> operating system.
> Microsoft moves in
> Even though he didn't have one, Microsoft founder Bill Gates
> readily agreed to IBM's request. He bought a CP/M clone called
> DOS from Seattle Computer Products, a company run by a friend
> of Gates, for $250,000. That program became MS-DOS, proably
> the most widely used software in the world, and helped turn
> Gates into a billionaire.
> Kildall had earlier sued Seattle Computer Products for
> copyright infringement. When he confronted IBM with the fact,
> IBM responded that it would agree to license CP/M as well -- if
> Kildall agreed never to sue. He did, only to discover when the
> IBM PC was introduced that the price of DOS was $40, while the
> price of CP/M-86 was $200 more.
> "It was only through inadequately sharp business hustling that
> MS-DOS took the IBM cake when, by rights, CP/M should have done
> so," Warren said.
> But hard-nosed business was not Kildall's style.
> "Basicly I am a gadget-oriented person," Kildall said in 1981.
> "I like to work with gadgets, dials and knobs. I'm not a very
> competitive person. I'm forced into it."
> Kildasll remained active in the industry until his death. He
> was Digital Research chairman until 1991, when Novell Inc.
> bought the company. He started an early multimedia company in
> Monterey in 1985, and later moved to Austin, Texas, to persue
> the field. He recently returned to Monterey and spent the last
> year and a half writing an unpublished book on the computer
> industry called "Computer Connections."
> Kildall was born in Seattle on May 19, 1942, and studied
> computer science at the University of Washington, eventually
> earning a Ph.D. He then took his post at the Naval
> Postgraduate School.
> Kildall met McEwen while in high school. The two married in
> 1963 and were divorced 20 years later. Kildall married his
> second wife, Karen, in 1986. They were recently divorced.
> Kildall is survived by two children; Scott, of San Fransisco,
> and Kristin, of Seattle; his mother, Emma; and a sister, Patti
> Guberlet, both of Seattle.
> Kildall, who was also race car enthusiast who collected and
> rebuilt Grand Prix cars, will be cremated after a memorial
> service later this week. Details are incomplete.
> --
> Greg Limes [not speaking for 3DO]
> #include <disclaimer.h>
> When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl.
> PGP 0x1873DB65 // 12 8B 30 43 AA 88 8E F7 DD 50 97 D2 84 FD 5A 5C
RIP

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Re: Gary Kildall, dead at age 52 KP2 KP2 <jungletrain@outlook.com> - 2023-09-11 18:00 -0700
  Re: Gary Kildall, dead at age 52 Dave McGuire <mcguire@lssmuseum.org> - 2023-09-12 15:16 -0400
    Re: Gary Kildall, dead at age 52 Aron Hoekstra <nullvalue@gmail.com> - 2023-09-12 20:25 -0700
      Re: Gary Kildall, dead at age 52 Captain Nemo <nemo@nowhere.org> - 2023-09-13 09:31 +0000
        Re: Gary Kildall, dead at age 52 Dave McGuire <mcguire@lssmuseum.org> - 2023-09-13 20:45 -0400
        Re: Gary Kildall, dead at age 52 dxf <dxforth@gmail.com> - 2023-09-14 10:55 +1000
          Re: Gary Kildall, dead at age 52 Douglas Miller <durgadas311@gmail.com> - 2023-09-13 18:47 -0700
            Re: Gary Kildall, dead at age 52 Captain Nemo <nemo@nowhere.org> - 2023-09-14 09:30 +0000
              Re: Gary Kildall, dead at age 52 Douglas Miller <durgadas311@gmail.com> - 2023-09-14 04:55 -0700
                Re: Gary Kildall, dead at age 52 dxf <dxforth@gmail.com> - 2023-09-16 16:38 +1000
                Re: Gary Kildall, dead at age 52 Douglas Miller <durgadas311@gmail.com> - 2023-09-16 04:01 -0700
                Re: Gary Kildall, dead at age 52 KP2 KP2 <jungletrain@outlook.com> - 2023-09-16 09:47 -0700
                Re: Gary Kildall, dead at age 52 Douglas Miller <durgadas311@gmail.com> - 2023-09-16 10:06 -0700
                Re: Gary Kildall, dead at age 52 yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> - 2023-09-16 17:34 +0000
                Re: Gary Kildall, dead at age 52 Dave McGuire <mcguire@lssmuseum.org> - 2023-09-17 12:59 -0400
                Re: Gary Kildall, dead at age 52 "comp.os.cpm" <philg@talk21.com> - 2023-09-19 09:42 -0700
                Re: Gary Kildall, dead at age 52 "comp.os.cpm" <durgadas311@gmail.com> - 2023-09-19 10:02 -0700
                Re: Gary Kildall, dead at age 52 Steve Nickolas <usotsuki@buric.co> - 2023-09-16 18:24 -0400
            Re: Gary Kildall, dead at age 52 bill <bill.gunshannon@gmail.com> - 2023-09-14 09:06 -0400
          Re: Gary Kildall, dead at age 52 Dave McGuire <mcguire@lssmuseum.org> - 2023-09-13 22:16 -0400
      Re: Gary Kildall, dead at age 52 Paolo Amoroso <paolo.amoroso@gmail.com> - 2023-09-14 02:50 -0700

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