David Maynard wrote:
Microsoft had the vision of running the same software on anyone's 'PC
clone' and while it may seem obvious today it was anything but obvious in
1980 as the 'home computer' world was a hodge podge of individual hardware
types each running their own O.S. (of a sorts) just like the mainframe
world was. Commodore stuff didn't run on an Apple and Apple stuff didn't
run on an Atari, and Atari stuff didn't run on a CPM machine (CPM being the
closest to a 'multiple hardware supplier' O.S.).

You're attributing to Microsoft what rightfully belongs to Digital Research
and CP/M. Kildall had the vision of running the same software on anyone's
PC, with a uniform set of utility programs and system calls. Paterson
copied it and Gates bought the copy.

--
If John McCain gets the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination,
my vote for President will be a write-in for Jiang Zemin.