[Elecraft] Spilling the HF beans .....

[Brian Lloyd]

On Jun 3, 2007, at 4:54 AM, Fred (FL) wrote:

> And Bill Gates empire was launched, and IBM got
> its first DOS contract from Gates - and IBM's PC was
> launched.

The way I remember it, IBM decided they wanted a version of CP/M for  
their new Intel 8086-based system and went to Digital Research.  
Somehow the folks at DR managed to really annoy the folks from IBM.  
(I heard it that Gary Kildall's wife wouldn't deal with them because  
Gary was out-of-town.) So IBM turned to the small company that was  
supposed to provide the BASIC interpreter for the new "PC": Microsoft.

Bill Gates of Microsoft assured IBM that Microsoft had a replacement  
for CP/M-86 even though they really didn't. (Ah, vapor-ware has been  
with us for a LONG time.) Microsoft then quickly purchased the rights  
to a CP/M lookalike called QDOS. That became IBM's PC-DOS which  
Microsoft then renamed MS-DOS. The rest is history.

73 de Brian, WB6RQN
Brian Lloyd - brian HYPHEN wb6rqn AT lloyd DOT com