[econjack]

If it wasn't for IBM Gates would still be crawling in dumpster looking for code to steal!!

I really doubt that. Microsoft had a reasonable operating system in MSDOS, and IBM wouldn't have purchased it otherwise. The fact that IBM did purchase it simply confirms Microsoft's viability. There were other choices for IBM (Northstar DOS, CP/M, UNIX, etc.) but they chose MSDOS. Also, Microsoft's language development tools were the best available at the time (e.g., Basic 80, M80, and L80). Given your name, if you had an Amiga at one time, you know how scarce the development tools were in that environment back then.

[amigatec]

I really doubt that. Microsoft had a reasonable operating system in MSDOS, and IBM wouldn't have purchased it otherwise. The fact that IBM did purchase it simply confirms Microsoft's viability. There were other choices for IBM (Northstar DOS, CP/M, UNIX, etc.) but they chose MSDOS. Also, Microsoft's language development tools were the best available at the time (e.g., Basic 80, M80, and L80). Given your name, if you had an Amiga at one time, you know how scarce the development tools were in that environment back then.

Which is my point exactly!!

MSDOS wasn't written by Microsoft, it was a ripoff copy of CP/M. Gates bought it from Tim Patterson, he knew what it was and were it came from.

As far as MS's Basic Language tools, Gates stole that from Harvard.

So I will repeat what I said 'If it wasn't for IBM Gates would still be crawling in dumpsters looking for code to steal!!'

[amigatec]

I forgot to mention that MSDOS was far from being ready, IBM had to fix over 300 problems with it, before they could use it. That is why the IBM's copyright was always displayed along side MS's.