Path: csiph.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: rbowman Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.os.linux.misc Subject: Re: The joy of actual numbers, was Democracy Date: 3 Nov 2024 19:16:00 GMT Lines: 30 Message-ID: References: <2ItTO.338744$v8v2.95701@fx18.iad> <199392d0-9628-8177-2f3b-35b23a721dd4@example.net> <086607f1-2283-f7fb-ddf9-ac4766b06530@example.net> <3RPUO.364883$v8v2.299927@fx18.iad> <6723f0c1@news.ausics.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: individual.net ovJylOOpwyGV/mHl6DSk/QgBmwOi27xCK1wr2MAOuPylbQnBSR Cancel-Lock: sha1:Straw4PT2Ch+JhyXafS5nHn14oc= sha256:Z3gzQjFbqSWxKYIUnAXcOL5PX3irvXhxccIVTp1+buI= User-Agent: Pan/0.149 (Bellevue; 4c157ba) Xref: csiph.com alt.folklore.computers:228479 comp.os.linux.misc:60412 On Sun, 3 Nov 2024 08:56:07 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote: > On 02/11/2024 19:32, rbowman wrote: >> On Sat, 2 Nov 2024 11:18:05 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote: >> >>> Americans aren't really that good at inventing stuff. >>> >>> What they are good at is taking a design and throwing money at it to >>> create a mass produced product that will sell to an enormous >>> marketplace that all speaks the same language. Mostly. >> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_inventions >> >> We've come up with a few things, like cupcakes and candy corn. > > The point is you don't actually *need* to come up with anything. Let > Europe and Japan do the hard thinky stuff, and then just buy the rights > to the technology once it looks like working. > > Who did Bill Gates buy MSDOS from? Seattle Computer Products. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Computer_Products That itself was a simple twist of fate: https://bookjelly.com/the-tragic-story-of-gary-kildall/ CP/M-86 was arguably a superior OS but couldn't compete.