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Re: Gary Kildall, dead at age 52

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On Saturday, September 16, 2023 at 4:01:17 AM UTC-7, Douglas Miller wrote:
> On Saturday, September 16, 2023 at 1:38:10 AM UTC-5, dxf wrote: 
> > To give Gates his due he was very good at forecasting trends and prepared 
> > to take risks. Seeing the IBM PC on the horizon, he dropped CP/M without 
> > any qualms. PC DOS 1.x - dated as it was - got his foot in the door. 
> > Within 2 years he produced MS-DOS 2.x and never looked back. Even IBM 
> > found itself in the back seat - just another supplier. It's Gates' name 
> > that was in lights and to whom the world was looking.
> That's a rather grandiose rewrite of history, considering what actually happened. Gates didn't "drop" CP/M (especially considering that DOS started as a rip-off of CP/M), but circumstances (and IBM) dictated what happened. And to somehow say that DOS was great is really a failure to see it for what it was. The microcomputer market was blinded by the IBM name, and Gates was shrewd to tie himself to that post. True that he was able to escape the orbit around IBM, but it was IBM that launched him into that orbit in the first place.
I heard that Bill had reversed engineered CP/M and made DOS out of it. Only if Digital Research was Microsoft.

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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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