7 ms·

I've always wondered why IBM chose Microsoft to create the OS - what someone told me just recently was that Bill's mother was [worked with the Chairman of] the

by rb808 9y ago

I've always wondered why IBM chose Microsoft to create the OS - what someone told me just recently was that Bill's mother was [worked with the Chairman of] the IBM board which no doubt helped him get the contract. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Maxwell_Gates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Maxwell_Gates edited: I've corrected this, she wasn't on the board but worked with Chairman.

pavlov 9y ago
Based on that Wikipedia article, she was not on IBM's board, but that of a non-profit named United Way which also included IBM's chairman on its executive committee.
- Theodores 9y ago
  Thank goodness for Wikipedia as this story is like the 640Kb quote that was only ever said because people say so, not because they actually heard it. I was of the opinion that it was the IBM board, not some non profit, I am sure I would have noticed the difference. Somewhere out there is a well written version of the story with this detail wrong.
  - krylon 9y ago
    > the 640Kb quote I read somewhere[1] that the quote is technically accurate but taken out of context, in that it did not mean that 640K were enough for everyone forever. And at the time the IBM PC was introduced, 640K were plenty of RAM for a single user. (I think it was "Expert C Programming" by Peter van der Linden.)
    - jecel 9y ago
      My impression is that the 640KB quote started as a huge simplification of the arguments Bill Gates made in an article in an early PC Magazine (might have been a rival magazine instead - it has been 35 years since I read it) defending IBM's decision to "waste" so much of the precious 1MB address space on I/O. And he was right: without this networking and betters graphics would have been much harder to do later on.
acomjean 9y ago
According to the documentary "Triumph of the Nerds" and part 1 of the article. MS was a programming language shop. Basically they wanted to get IBM an OS so it would be successful and they'd sell more software. https://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2017/06/ibm-pc-history-part-1/ https://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2017/06/ibm-pc-history-par... IBM didn't do their homework and went to microsoft for programming languages and and Operating System. Microsoft sent IBM to Gary Kildall's "Digital Research" company (they made CPM os). It was based in his house, he was away, his wife and lawyers wouldn't sign the NDA... They left empty handed, and Microsoft said they'd get them an OS. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Kildall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Kildall
- bitmapbrother 9y ago
  >Before the IBM representatives would explain the purpose of their visit, they insisted that Dorothy sign a non-disclosure agreement. On the advice of DRI attorney Gerry Davis, Dorothy refused to sign the agreement without Gary's approval. Gary returned in the afternoon and tried to move the discussion with IBM forward, but accounts disagree on whether he signed the non-disclosure agreement, as well as if he ever met with the IBM representatives.[8] No one knows what really happened.
  - davehtaylor 9y ago
    Everything about this situation seems shady to me. It's really hard to take the story at face value. Especially given Gary's downward spiral afterward. There has to be _way_ more to this story than is widely known.
  - acomjean 9y ago
    If I recall from the documentary they had the ibm guy talking about going to Microsoft. I'll have to re watch : Transcript snip http://www.pbs.org/nerds/part2.html http://www.pbs.org/nerds/part2.html: Bill Gates: IBM didn't make it easy. You had to sign all these funny agreements that sort of said I...IBM could do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and use your secrets however they - they felt. But so it took a little bit of faith. Jack Sams was looking for a package from Microsoft containing both the BASIC computer language and an Operating System. But IBM hadn't done their homework. Steve Ballmer: They thought we had an operating system. Because we had this Soft Card product that had CPM on it, they thought we could licence them CPM for this new personal computer they told us they wanted to do, and we said well, no, we're not in that business. Jack Sams: When we discovered we didn't have - he didn't have the rights to do that and that it was not...he said but I think it's ready, I think that Gary's got it ready to go. So I said well, there's no time like the present, call up Gary. Steve Ballmer: And so Bill right there with them in the room called Gary Kildall at Digital Research and said Gary, I'm sending some guys down. They're going to be on the phone. Treat them right, they're important guys. The men from IBM came to this Victorian House in Pacific Grove California, headquarters of Digital Research, headed by Gary and Dorothy Kildall. Just imagine what its like having IBM come to visit - its like having the Queen drop by for tea, its like having the Pope come by looking for advice, its like a visit from God himself. And what did Gary and Dorothy do? They sent them away. Jack Sams: Gary had some other plans and so he said well, Dorothy will see you. So we went down the three of us... Gordon Eubanks: (Former Head of Language Division, Digital Research) IBM showed up with an IBM non-disclosure and Dorothy made what I...a decision which I think it's easy in retrospect to say was dumb. Jack Sams: We popped out our letter that said please don't tell anybody we're here, and we don't want to hear anything confidential. And she read it and said and I can't sign this. Gordon Eubanks: She did what her job was, she got the lawyer to look at the nondisclosure. The lawyer, Gerry Davis who's still in Monterey threw up on this non-disclosure. It was uncomfortable for IBM, they weren't used to waiting. And it was unfortunate situation - here you are in a tiny Victorian House, its overrun with people, chaotic. Jack Sams: So we spent the whole day in Pacific Grove debating with them and with our attorneys and her attorneys and everybody else about whether or not she could even talk to us about talking to us, and we left. This is the moment Digital Research dropped the ball. IBM, distinctly unimpressed with their reception, went back to Microsoft. BOB: It seems to me that Digital Research really screwed up. STEVE BALLMER: I think so - I think that's spot on. They made a big mistake. We referred IBM to them and they failed to execute. Bill Gates isn't the man to give a rival a second chance. He saw the opportunity of a lifetime. Bill Gates: Digital research didn't seize that, and we knew it was essential, if somebody didn't do it, the project was going to fall apart.
msla 9y ago
Just adding to the theme of "Bill Gates was a privileged, privileged man": https://worldhistoryproject.org/1976/2/bill-gates-writes-open-letter-to-hobbyists https://worldhistoryproject.org/1976/2/bill-gates-writes-ope... > Microsoft's software development [for Altair BASIC] was done on a DEC PDP-10 mainframe computer system. Paul Allen had developed a program that could completely simulate a new microprocessor system. This allowed them to write and debug software before the new computer hardware was complete. They were charged by the hour and by the amount of resources used (storage, printing, etc.) The 6800 BASIC was complete before the Altair 680B was finished.[21] This was the $40,000 of computer time [mentioned in the "Open Letter To Hobbyists"]. [snip] > The [PDP-10] computer system was funded by the Department of Defense through its Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The computer was delivered in the middle of the night in 1969 at the height of the Vietnam War protests. Harvard officials were not pleased that Gates and Allen (who was not a student) had used the PDP-10 to develop a commercial product. They determined that this military computer was not covered by any Harvard policy. The PDP-10 was controlled by Professor Thomas Cheatham who felt that students could use the machine for personal use. Harvard placed restrictions on the computer's use and Gates had to use a commercial time share computer until MITS provided access to a PDP-10 in Albuquerque. Was it wrong, legally or morally, to use a DoD-funded computer to develop a commercial product? Dunno, but the point is, Gates had access to it because he went to Harvard, and the software he developed on it got him into the position where IBM noticed him and his company.
- mtl_usr 9y ago
  I love the clash between lawyers and a CS professor at Harvard that was simply happy some of it's students were programming and working on some personal projects.
- m_mueller 9y ago
  Isn't this how things always go? Technology often trickles down from military until someone makes it accessible for others. In this case it was Apple, Microsoft and to some degree IBM. Bill Gates seems to be a master at grabbing the opportunities given to him. I don't see a fault in that, as opposed to later business practices.
covfefenut 9y ago
Bill's mother also paid for the computer time at the high school Bill went to with his other friends who formed Microsoft with him. Since this was before the Microcomputer, time sharing on a minicomputer or mainframe was very expensive. So Bill and his friends had knowledge of programming a computer before anyone else did. IBM claimed DRI charged too much for CP/M, and since Microsoft made BASIC IBM thought they could get a better deal on a DOS from Microsoft. 86-DOS became PC-DOS/MS-DOS and the DOS interrupts emulated the CP/M interrupts or API as it was later called. Back then, it was legal to reverse engineer stuff and make a copy of it using new source code. But the claim of Paterson and others was that they didn't pirate/steal CP/M they made an API in DOS that could run CP/M programs and then had a program that could convert a program to DOS from CP/M because the executable file format was different in DOS. Microsoft did undercut CP/M in OS price, which was a big factor in getting paid by IBM and other OEMS for their DOS. Microsoft Windows came out in 1985 and over the years it took more and more features from the Apple Macintosh. It did not have the source code of a Mac, but it was designed to use some of the look and feel from a Mac. Enough for trade dress lawsuits. Microsoft and Apple settled their differences out of court in the late 1990's. CP/M was a good operating system, my father bought me and my siblings a Commodore 128 after the Commodore 64 died. By that time the Z80 coprocessor on the 128 ran CP/M80 for cheap, but it was too late, DOS had killed CP/M.
wslh 9y ago
Bill Gates was born in a privileged family but this is not enough to sustain super challenges Microsoft dealt for decades. He outwork almost everyone. I am not saying he didn't use unfair tactics, just saying that he was not only lucky.
- pstuart 9y ago
  success = luck + talent + effort
  - Clubber 9y ago
    "The harder you work, the luckier you get." One of my favorite quotes.
    - pstuart 9y ago
      "luck favors the prepared" -- Louis Pasteur We still need to acknowledge that luck is part of the pattern.
- WalterBright 9y ago
  There was nothing Gates or Jobs did that I and many others I personally knew couldn't have done at the same time. We had the knowledge to do it. We were just unaware of the possibilities, and lacked the nerve. Opportunity stared us in the face and we were blind. None of us were wealthy or privileged.
  - lobf 9y ago
    Owning a computer, getting a college education, having a stable, supportive family are all privileges, and at least a couple of them require a good amount of money to spare. Not trying to play oppression olympics here, but I think we should try and recognize the privileges that many of us enjoy, and many others don't.
    - WalterBright 9y ago

by rb808 9y ago

pavlov 9y ago

Based on that Wikipedia article, she was not on IBM's board, but that of a non-profit named United Way which also included IBM's chairman on its executive committee.

Theodores 9y ago
Thank goodness for Wikipedia as this story is like the 640Kb quote that was only ever said because people say so, not because they actually heard it. I was of the opinion that it was the IBM board, not some non profit, I am sure I would have noticed the difference. Somewhere out there is a well written version of the story with this detail wrong.
- krylon 9y ago
  > the 640Kb quote I read somewhere[1] that the quote is technically accurate but taken out of context, in that it did not mean that 640K were enough for everyone forever. And at the time the IBM PC was introduced, 640K were plenty of RAM for a single user. (I think it was "Expert C Programming" by Peter van der Linden.)
  - jecel 9y ago
    My impression is that the 640KB quote started as a huge simplification of the arguments Bill Gates made in an article in an early PC Magazine (might have been a rival magazine instead - it has been 35 years since I read it) defending IBM's decision to "waste" so much of the precious 1MB address space on I/O. And he was right: without this networking and betters graphics would have been much harder to do later on.

acomjean 9y ago

According to the documentary "Triumph of the Nerds" and part 1 of the article. MS was a programming language shop. Basically they wanted to get IBM an OS so it would be successful and they'd sell more software. https://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2017/06/ibm-pc-history-part-1/ https://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2017/06/ibm-pc-history-par... IBM didn't do their homework and went to microsoft for programming languages and and Operating System. Microsoft sent IBM to Gary Kildall's "Digital Research" company (they made CPM os). It was based in his house, he was away, his wife and lawyers wouldn't sign the NDA... They left empty handed, and Microsoft said they'd get them an OS. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Kildall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Kildall

bitmapbrother 9y ago
>Before the IBM representatives would explain the purpose of their visit, they insisted that Dorothy sign a non-disclosure agreement. On the advice of DRI attorney Gerry Davis, Dorothy refused to sign the agreement without Gary's approval. Gary returned in the afternoon and tried to move the discussion with IBM forward, but accounts disagree on whether he signed the non-disclosure agreement, as well as if he ever met with the IBM representatives.[8] No one knows what really happened.
- davehtaylor 9y ago
  Everything about this situation seems shady to me. It's really hard to take the story at face value. Especially given Gary's downward spiral afterward. There has to be _way_ more to this story than is widely known.
- acomjean 9y ago
  If I recall from the documentary they had the ibm guy talking about going to Microsoft. I'll have to re watch : Transcript snip http://www.pbs.org/nerds/part2.html http://www.pbs.org/nerds/part2.html: Bill Gates: IBM didn't make it easy. You had to sign all these funny agreements that sort of said I...IBM could do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and use your secrets however they - they felt. But so it took a little bit of faith. Jack Sams was looking for a package from Microsoft containing both the BASIC computer language and an Operating System. But IBM hadn't done their homework. Steve Ballmer: They thought we had an operating system. Because we had this Soft Card product that had CPM on it, they thought we could licence them CPM for this new personal computer they told us they wanted to do, and we said well, no, we're not in that business. Jack Sams: When we discovered we didn't have - he didn't have the rights to do that and that it was not...he said but I think it's ready, I think that Gary's got it ready to go. So I said well, there's no time like the present, call up Gary. Steve Ballmer: And so Bill right there with them in the room called Gary Kildall at Digital Research and said Gary, I'm sending some guys down. They're going to be on the phone. Treat them right, they're important guys. The men from IBM came to this Victorian House in Pacific Grove California, headquarters of Digital Research, headed by Gary and Dorothy Kildall. Just imagine what its like having IBM come to visit - its like having the Queen drop by for tea, its like having the Pope come by looking for advice, its like a visit from God himself. And what did Gary and Dorothy do? They sent them away. Jack Sams: Gary had some other plans and so he said well, Dorothy will see you. So we went down the three of us... Gordon Eubanks: (Former Head of Language Division, Digital Research) IBM showed up with an IBM non-disclosure and Dorothy made what I...a decision which I think it's easy in retrospect to say was dumb. Jack Sams: We popped out our letter that said please don't tell anybody we're here, and we don't want to hear anything confidential. And she read it and said and I can't sign this. Gordon Eubanks: She did what her job was, she got the lawyer to look at the nondisclosure. The lawyer, Gerry Davis who's still in Monterey threw up on this non-disclosure. It was uncomfortable for IBM, they weren't used to waiting. And it was unfortunate situation - here you are in a tiny Victorian House, its overrun with people, chaotic. Jack Sams: So we spent the whole day in Pacific Grove debating with them and with our attorneys and her attorneys and everybody else about whether or not she could even talk to us about talking to us, and we left. This is the moment Digital Research dropped the ball. IBM, distinctly unimpressed with their reception, went back to Microsoft. BOB: It seems to me that Digital Research really screwed up. STEVE BALLMER: I think so - I think that's spot on. They made a big mistake. We referred IBM to them and they failed to execute. Bill Gates isn't the man to give a rival a second chance. He saw the opportunity of a lifetime. Bill Gates: Digital research didn't seize that, and we knew it was essential, if somebody didn't do it, the project was going to fall apart.

msla 9y ago

Just adding to the theme of "Bill Gates was a privileged, privileged man": https://worldhistoryproject.org/1976/2/bill-gates-writes-open-letter-to-hobbyists https://worldhistoryproject.org/1976/2/bill-gates-writes-ope... > Microsoft's software development [for Altair BASIC] was done on a DEC PDP-10 mainframe computer system. Paul Allen had developed a program that could completely simulate a new microprocessor system. This allowed them to write and debug software before the new computer hardware was complete. They were charged by the hour and by the amount of resources used (storage, printing, etc.) The 6800 BASIC was complete before the Altair 680B was finished.[21] This was the $40,000 of computer time [mentioned in the "Open Letter To Hobbyists"]. [snip] > The [PDP-10] computer system was funded by the Department of Defense through its Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The computer was delivered in the middle of the night in 1969 at the height of the Vietnam War protests. Harvard officials were not pleased that Gates and Allen (who was not a student) had used the PDP-10 to develop a commercial product. They determined that this military computer was not covered by any Harvard policy. The PDP-10 was controlled by Professor Thomas Cheatham who felt that students could use the machine for personal use. Harvard placed restrictions on the computer's use and Gates had to use a commercial time share computer until MITS provided access to a PDP-10 in Albuquerque. Was it wrong, legally or morally, to use a DoD-funded computer to develop a commercial product? Dunno, but the point is, Gates had access to it because he went to Harvard, and the software he developed on it got him into the position where IBM noticed him and his company.

mtl_usr 9y ago
I love the clash between lawyers and a CS professor at Harvard that was simply happy some of it's students were programming and working on some personal projects.
m_mueller 9y ago
Isn't this how things always go? Technology often trickles down from military until someone makes it accessible for others. In this case it was Apple, Microsoft and to some degree IBM. Bill Gates seems to be a master at grabbing the opportunities given to him. I don't see a fault in that, as opposed to later business practices.

covfefenut 9y ago

Bill's mother also paid for the computer time at the high school Bill went to with his other friends who formed Microsoft with him. Since this was before the Microcomputer, time sharing on a minicomputer or mainframe was very expensive. So Bill and his friends had knowledge of programming a computer before anyone else did. IBM claimed DRI charged too much for CP/M, and since Microsoft made BASIC IBM thought they could get a better deal on a DOS from Microsoft. 86-DOS became PC-DOS/MS-DOS and the DOS interrupts emulated the CP/M interrupts or API as it was later called. Back then, it was legal to reverse engineer stuff and make a copy of it using new source code. But the claim of Paterson and others was that they didn't pirate/steal CP/M they made an API in DOS that could run CP/M programs and then had a program that could convert a program to DOS from CP/M because the executable file format was different in DOS. Microsoft did undercut CP/M in OS price, which was a big factor in getting paid by IBM and other OEMS for their DOS. Microsoft Windows came out in 1985 and over the years it took more and more features from the Apple Macintosh. It did not have the source code of a Mac, but it was designed to use some of the look and feel from a Mac. Enough for trade dress lawsuits. Microsoft and Apple settled their differences out of court in the late 1990's. CP/M was a good operating system, my father bought me and my siblings a Commodore 128 after the Commodore 64 died. By that time the Z80 coprocessor on the 128 ran CP/M80 for cheap, but it was too late, DOS had killed CP/M.

wslh 9y ago

Bill Gates was born in a privileged family but this is not enough to sustain super challenges Microsoft dealt for decades. He outwork almost everyone. I am not saying he didn't use unfair tactics, just saying that he was not only lucky.

pstuart 9y ago
success = luck + talent + effort
- Clubber 9y ago
  "The harder you work, the luckier you get." One of my favorite quotes.
  - pstuart 9y ago
    "luck favors the prepared" -- Louis Pasteur We still need to acknowledge that luck is part of the pattern.
WalterBright 9y ago
There was nothing Gates or Jobs did that I and many others I personally knew couldn't have done at the same time. We had the knowledge to do it. We were just unaware of the possibilities, and lacked the nerve. Opportunity stared us in the face and we were blind. None of us were wealthy or privileged.
- lobf 9y ago
  Owning a computer, getting a college education, having a stable, supportive family are all privileges, and at least a couple of them require a good amount of money to spare. Not trying to play oppression olympics here, but I think we should try and recognize the privileges that many of us enjoy, and many others don't.
  - WalterBright 9y ago