First Microsoft DOS built itself on the back of the IBM hardware and it's software apps base.
Microsoft DOS didn't make it big by porting is OS to other hardware platform did they?
The formula in the PC boom was Microsoft software (DOS) IBM firmware(BIOS) & Intel hardware(X86 cpu) and IBM was the big boy that made the PC the standard.
Other then back engineer the IBM bios with small changes so they could win in court that they were not violating IBM's copyright (The fact that IBM was the big bad guy at the time is,in my opinion, the reason they lost)
Did Bill Gates cry over this.. Hell no..(nor should he) The IBM BIOS his OS ran on had become public domain by court order.
Unless this happen there would be no Compaq, Corona, or any other IBM clones for his non-exclusively licensed OS to run on.
Now he could have try to port his OS to other hardware platform but then he would not have that nice big base of app for IBM to run
Microsoft is in the place it is today in good part because IBM's BIOS was "pirated" and the court let it stand.
[snip]
Let me guess: you live(d) in Boca, your life was going just fine until whatsisname died in that plane crash in Dallas before they had wind-shear warning systems, and instead of blaming Big Blue for dropping the ball at that point, you blame Uncle Bill???
Get a life.
PS: the IBM BIOS never became public domain, and it was never commercially "pirated" other than during Columbia's very brief chutzpah-moment, so please spare us the hyperbole. Man, I take a nap and this jernt turns into a complete nut house.
Oh, and by the way -- quite a few of the first-gen/third-party systems were barely "IBM compatible" at all. They had proprietary buses, proprietary builds of MSDOS, and proprietary BIOSes. One of the early platforms MS used to develop Windows was the Tandy 2000, which was about as incompatible as you can get -- about the only "compatible" thing about it was its ability to run only the most generic software, once it was (somehow) copied to its oddball floppy disc format.
When I was an authorized WordPerfect dealer, during the 4.x days, they had umpteen platforms to support, and it was costing 'em an arm and a leg. When they came out with 5.0, they dropped support for the vast majority of the non-mainstream platforms, just like the rest of the market was doing. Why? Because thanks to the standard established by Microsoft's OS, and the availability of generic computers, the splinter platforms died on the vine, and support became an increasingly heavy burden with no real payoff.
Now, when I pause typing, I can hear your synapses crackling, accompanied by the gentle "whoosh-whush" of your blood pressure emulating the sound of the seashore. So please, let me take this opportunity to remind you of who one of the biggest beneficiaries of this standardization turned out to be: your much-vaunted IBM.
That's right -- the rising water lifted all boats, including IBM's -- even though their marketing "geniuses" did everything in their power to fight the trend tooth and nail (i.e., the proprietary "PS/2" fiasco).
IBM was a huge beneficiary of the standardized architecture, itself made possible by the availability of a standardized operating system.
But even so, things didn't really take off until Windows hit the scene.