30 Mar
2014
30 Mar
'14
9:36 a.m.
> Paterson's/Seattle Computer Product's
Q-DOS (which later became 86-DOS,
> MS-DOS, and PC-DOS) was deliberately a "place-holder" for anticipated
> CP/M, and deliberately matched the user-interface and system calls of
> CP/M. That was generally considered legal at the time, and Digital
> Research did not sue - Gary Kildall was not litigious, and believed that
> the market would sort it out. What they DID get was an agreement by IBM
> to ALSO market CP/M-86, although $400 V $40 did not help the market to
> "sort it out".
On Sun, 30 Mar 2014, Eric Smith wrote:
I beg to differ. The 10X difference in price most
definitely did help the
market to "sort it out". There was essentially no confusion in the market
at all regarding which OS to use.
The price differential, as well as the 6? month wait after PC-DOS
before CP/M-86 became available, certainly sorted it out, and did
not "sort it out" in the way that Gary Kildall had anticipated.
(hence my quotation marks around "sort it out")
In the early days, most people assumed that MS-DOS/PC-DOS was still
just a placeholder, and that CP/M-86 would ultimately dominate the field.
But, as time dragged on, and more and more people used MS-DOS/PC-DOS
"while waiting for CP/M", the outcome shifted. When CP/M-86 finally
became available, the price differential "delayed" and prevented the
anticipated changeover. Even amongst people who still considered
CP/M-86 to be the ultimate standard, it became clear that Microsoft
had too much of a lead.
BTW, I have heard mutiple, conflicting explanations for the price
differential, ranging from short-sighted arrogance by DRI, to a
claim that IBM had set the high price over objections from DRI.
". . .and when Gary flew his plane to Oakland right when IBM was
scheduled to come a'calling, it was important legitimate business,
since delivering those papers to Godbout shouldn't simple be entrusted
to a courier"
There are, of course, conflicting accounts of that great culture clash.
I made it a point to stand, in shorts and a T-shirt, in an upstairs
window at Lighthouse St, and imagine what it must have looked like
to see the phalanx of suits coming up the walk - "are those businessmen
from back east, or DEA??" NOBODY in
Monterrey/Pacific Grove dressed
like that! The IBM contingent were correspondingly
shocked by the
attire, bicycles, surfboards, and couldn't really accept DRI as
being a business to be taken seriously.
Historical accuracy is difficult if not impossible. Fictionalizations
destroy public perceptions of events, such as "Pirates Of The Valley"
(1999), wherein Microsoft cold-called IBM to sell them on the need for
an OS! In THAT fictional Apple2 -> PC -> Mac "reality", CP/M and DRI
never even existed!
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
http://www.xenosoft.com/FPUIB