MS-DOS paternity suit settled

The Register ^ | 30 July 2007 | Andrew Orlowski

[ShadowAce]

[ejonesie22]

Gates you evil bastard...

Love ya man, if you crap worked I’d still be living in a one bedroom studio driving a burnt out Volvo diesel..

Hell XP alone paid for my Sailboat...

[r9etb]

I had occasion to use both C/PM-80 and MS-DOS, back in about 1982 or so. I thought C/PM was a superior product at the time.

[CHEE]

A long time coming. I still look for the DOS icon on my VISTA so I can have some control of my destiny. It’s not there, boo hoo.

[Yo-Yo]

I used DR-DOS in a TRS-80 Model I, and thought it superior to CP/M, and much superior to Tandy’s TRSDOS.

[discostu]

They got rid of the icon a while ago, but there’s still always start-run-cmd. They’ll never get rid of it completely, too many MS developers are commandline junkies.

[martin_fierro]

Blue Screen of ... Life?

[ShadowAce]

..so I can have some control of my destiny.

You want control? Here it is.

[xcamel]

It was, in spades, and the true rip-off was TRS-DOS.

[Turbo Pig]

I had occasion to use both C/PM-80 and MS-DOS, back in about 1982 or so. I thought C/PM was a superior product at the time.

One of the greatest "secrets" of the computer industry. Gate was a mediocre SW person, at best, by all accounts. His genius was in his marketing and distribution of a second rate product, which ended up running 80% of the PCs world wide at one point.

[BigBobber]

This was purely about marketing, not technology.

The oft-told story of Kildall spurning IBM to fly his plane is deeply misleading. It was IBM's distribution and pricing of CP/M, which in the end was one of three operating systems offered with the first IBM PC, that ensured MS-DOS captured the market.

MS-DOS was sold for $40, CP/M was over $200. The rest is history.

[Liberty Valance]

[ikka]

The greatest heist of the 20th Century - Gates essentially stealing from Kildall and building a $50B company by theft.

Partial list of people Gates stole from:

• Gary Kildall / DOS
• STAC, stealing their compression code
• IBM, by overcharging for OS2 development amongst other things
• WANG, ripping off stuff that later became OLE
• Coercing Intel on their NSP stuff
• ripping off Spyglass Mosaic, making only minimum royalty payments - MS later settled out of court
• etc. etc.

[CHEE]

I do appreciate your information and link. I fear that I am far too long in the tooth to tackle the LYNUX OS. Even going to the Apple stuff would possibly cause me a problem. No, after all these years I have came to the realization that “Black Screens” are as much a part of my life as is death. I am happy to be past the “JCL’ era.

[Spirochete]

Blue Screen of ... Life?

Complete with raster scanlines.

[Spirochete]

There's a Mac behind his shoulder.

[Mannaggia l'America]

I still look for the DOS icon on my VISTA so I can have some control of my destiny. It’s not there, boo hoo.

Start/Run, cmd.exe, OK.

[laker_dad]

Sheesh! Who posed him for that picture? The fab five?

[Liberty Valance]

There's a Mac behind his shoulder.

Ha! You're right! I didn't notice it when posting... cool.