Rod & Betty Jo wrote:
"David G. Nagel" wrote in message
...
It should also be pointed out that IBM, when they came up with
their
computer, sought out Bill and his buddy and asked them to create
the
OS for their radical new computer. Bill originally wanted to sell
the OS to IBM but IBM didn't want to have to support the code. The
rest as they say is history.
Dave N


You've got it backwards.....IBM wanted to buy the code.........Gates
insisted on the license and the ability to sell to third party PC
manufacturers (he declined a multi-million dollar offer from IBM).

Either way, if IBM had ended up with the code the only real long term
difference in the computer market would be that everybody hated Gary
Kildall instead of Bill Gates, because it was intended to be a CP/M
machine from the outset and the only reason it wasn't was that Digital
Research (which, for those who think I'm talking about the outfit that
made VAXen, was a different company from Digital Equipment) didn't get
their OS on the machine as the default was that somehow they managed
to tick off IBM enough for IBM to seek a second source (there are many
stories concerning what specific action set them off).

IBM as well tried to keep the PC market propriety but between Intel
owning the chip, Microsoft owning the OS and third parties (Compaq I
think) cracking the hardware they could not.

There wasn't any hardware in an IBM PC that needed "cracking". What
Compaq did was write a clone of the ROM-BIOS program that did not
infringe IBM's copyright.

If IBM had really wanted to keep the PC proprietary they would have
used their own OS and processor (they had a single-chip 370 running in
the laboratory, and they had their own 32-bit multiuser multitasking
virtual-memory protected mode operating system in commercial
production long before the first IBM PC shipped) instead of farming it
out to some hole in the wall.

They saw what was happening in the microcomputer market and the PC was
an attempt to cash in on it on the cheap--the prototype PC was pretty
much built from the parts bin for the System 25, which had been a big
flop.

For DOS both IBM and
Microsoft had separate support /development teams (Microsoft's much
smaller, leaner and more effective). PC DOS was supported by IBM and
MSDOS was supported by Microsoft.

Which was more effective is debatable. Once they split the code base,
PC DOS was generally tighter code.

Various DOS version releases flip
flopped between the teams. IBM fully expected OS/2 to render DOS
obsolete long before its ultimate demise. Microsoft's Window
development was a bit of a sleeper with ver 3 setting the stage for
a
WIN95 knockout.......Rod

Well, actually it was NT that set the stage for the WIN95
knockout--the only reason Windows 95 ever existed was to induce
developers to start writing code for WIN32.

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)