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I built my first computer (wire wrapped would be the proper term) in July/August of 1974. At that time there was no DOS as there was no hard drives available. You keyed in your rudimentary OpSys commands into your machine before you could do anything - and when you turned it off, you lost everything. Quickly mag tape drives became available with S100 interface cards, allowing you to load your OpSys when you started (or even Paper Tape readers if you wanted). When hard drives came along in late '75-'76 the OpSystem to use was Gary Kildahl's Digital Research DOS (developed mostly using some US Navy dollars - although Kildahl didn't like to admit that). Gates and Allen were still working with (or for - depending on who you believe) Ed Robert's Altair Comapany down in New Mexico trying to peddle their very simple Basic interpreter - that they "borrowed from DEC's PDP series by cross compiling for Intel chips. Intels instruction set was based on the PDP series min-computers so it was a relatively easy task. At that same time there were other more sophisticated Intrepters and Compilers that you could use - but not as inexpensive as M$'s.
Later, when the first 16 Intel chips hit the market, a couple other fellows formed Seattle Computing Company and recompiled Kildahl's DOS over to 16 bits. Then in late '79/'80, IBM went to three companies to get an Operating System for what was going to be IBM's second attempt at the home desktop market (the first attempt, their 5100 series, failed because it was far too expensive). When IBM approached Kildahl to license his OpSys, he sorta told them to take a hike - lotsa stories as why he did so; but he did reluctantly agree to license the software. I have an original Digital REsearch/IBM software pack in my collection of "stuff".
IBM needed software to run on their first machines besides just a dumb OpSys, so they asked Gates & Allen to license Basic to them. When the M$ boys found out that IBM wasn't getting too much co-operation from Kildahl they volunteered to provide an OpSys along with their Basic. The fact that they didn't have an OpSys didn't bother the boys as they knew they could pick up Seattle Computings rip-off of Kidahl's OpSys for a song.
The rest is history - except now when people try to do what they did ("borrow" software, modify it for their own use - and even sell it) they get hostile.
So, do I remember DOS? Yup, I remember what it was like way before DOS!!!!!
Last edited by Woogieman at Oct 3 2002, 12:10 PM
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