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244 points rbanffy | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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pavlov ◴[] No.44603830[source]
"“Our father, Gary Kildall, was one of the founders of the personal computer industry, but you probably don’t know his name. Those who have heard of him may recall the myth that he ‘missed’ the opportunity to become Bill Gates by going flying instead of meeting with IBM. Unfortunately, this tall tale paints Gary as a ‘could-have-been,’ ignores his deep contributions, and overshadows his role as an inventor of key technologies that define how computer platforms run today.

"Gary viewed computers as learning tools rather than profit engines. His career choices reflect a different definition of success, where innovation means sharing ideas, letting passion drive your work and making source code available for others to build upon. His work ethic during the 1970s resembles that of the open-source community today.

"With this perspective, we offer a portion of our father’s unpublished memoirs so that you can read about his experiences and reflections on the early days of the computer industry, directly in his own voice."

Sounds really interesting. Thanks for making this available!

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elzbardico ◴[] No.44605235[source]
Let's be frank. Gates was from the WASP elites, old money stuff. IBM would probably find a reason to give him the deal rather than to Gary no matter what.
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xen2xen1 ◴[] No.44606938[source]
Gates had a version of DOS ready in 6 weeks, while DR was still planning DOS. MS got things going much faster.
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rbanffy ◴[] No.44607715[source]
No. He ran out and acquired 86-DOS, from Seattle Computer Products. It's easy to have something when you buy it already complete.

And DR had CP/M-86.

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1. canucker2016 ◴[] No.44609243{3}[source]
MS still had to make modifications to Tim Patterson's 86-DOS before it shipped as PC-DOS 1.0 - source: Paul Allen's Idea Man autobiography.