RIP.
His work in finding sunken WWII Navy Ships was a great service to mankind.
That is just terrible. May he rest in everlasting peace.
RIP. We owe much to him.
Very sad to hear. This is one fellow I really, really liked and admired.
You can’t take it with you.
RIP Paul Allen.
I was just about to post. Thanks for beating me to it.
Paul Allen, regardless of his politics, did a good job of enjoying and using the unbelievable wealth that his share of Microsoft grew into. Basketball, football, sailing, research... amazing. Many people would have vegetated in rich gathering places like Manhattan, Cannes, or Davos.
RIP.
IBM, whose success was built largely on government subsidized research, had belatedly decided to get into the personal computer business, that bevvy of geniuses having dismissed the trend in its planning during the 1970’s. They did not even have a program to run a PC, and so approached Gates for some help. Gates didn’t have one either, and referred them to Gary Kildall of Digital Research Inc. Talks did not go well between Kildall and IBM, and another IBM employee, Jack Sims, approached Gates again. He still did not have a program, but began to show his true “genius.” He knew someone who did.
The system Gates had in mind might well have been based on Kildall’s work. Gates chose to approach a company called Seattle Computer Products (SCP). Tim Paterson, a SCP programmer, then had developed an operating system called Quick and Dirty Operating System (QDOS). Gates bought the rights for QDOS and hired Paterson to develop a modified version of QDOS to create MS-DOS and sell/license it to IBM.
The controversy over whether Gates cheated in the deal stems from the fact that Paterson had previously worked with Kindall at Digital Research Inc. (DRI). Kindall accused that both QDOS & MS-DOS had been copied from his original CP/M operating system. An accusation rejected by Microsoft. Gates asked if IBM wanted him to go get it, or if IBM would do that dirty work itself. Sams, understanding what was going on, insisted that Gates go get it, hint hint.
Ergo, the conundrum so many of us have faced over the years – crappy PC technology dominates the market because IBM had market power at that time. “People bought DOS because people were buying DOS.” Gates and Microsoft amassed a huge war chest of money, and from there started to buy up competing companies and to reverse engineer technology, including Apple’s icon-orientated home screen so common now on computers.
bookmark
Wow, I had no idea he was ill. RIP.