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MS-DOS Not Stolen, New Forensic Analysis Concludes
theodp writes "Challenging earlier assertions that Bill Gates got the rewards due Gary Kildall, a forensic analysis conducted for the latest issue of IEEE Spectrum concludes that the landmark MS-DOS operating system which Bill Gates and Microsoft licensed to IBM was an original piece of work, not stolen goods. Using his company's CodeSuite forensic software, Bob Zeidman said he found no evidence that QDOS or MS-DOS was copied from or was a derivative of Gary Kildall's CP/M. So, what do you think of Microsoft expert witness (pdf) Zeidman's "if-the-codebase-doesn't-fit-you-must-acquit" arguments?"
I think it's interesting only as a matter of curiosity at this point.
Using his company's CodeSuite forensic software,
Alternate summary: CodeSuite found not to work as forensic software!
There's a spot in User Info for World of Warcraft account names? Really?
Literally in the process of reading a dismissal of that same analysis. See what you think...
Actually, it's a fairly typical Microsoft attempt at a derivative: a copy of the superficial features on top of an unholy mess that shows that they don't understand the deeper concepts.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Windows? -> copy of MacOS Classic
Any more than Android or GNOME or KDE is a copy of Apple products?
"Whew!" said Mr. Kildall, from the grave. "I'm glad this slanderous attack on my programming skills has come to an end, and I have finally been exonerated."
The PET was a much better design. And back then, it was all good... in fact, Chuck Peddle (inventor of the PET and the MOS 6502) actually helped Woz on some critical issues to get the Apple I up and running. But Peddle had a whole system approach, thus, all the other chips Commodore made to support the 6502. If you look at the Apple I/][ or may of the other early personal computers, you usually see a Microprocessor, some memory chips, and a vast sea of SSI and MSI parts from the TTL databook. If you look at early Commodore machines, you find all sorts of integration.
But there's a vast difference between "inspired by" and "copied". And even then, in layers. Steve Jobs saw the Xerox Alto and got inspired. Apple didn't really copy the UI, they actually left out some of the good stuff. And of course, the OS they created was vastly inferior, and the internals had nothing to do with the Xerox system. Microsoft did actually borrow some of Apple's stuff, but they's because they actually did exchange code. Most of Windows had nothing to do with MacOS, and the OS design was not something any experienced OS designer would have some up with (eg, the OS treating an application as a series of callbacks)... and that's not even counting all of the serialization Windows did in Win32 to prevent real multitasking.
Windows NT, on the other hand, was directly inspired by VAX/VMS (via Dave Cutler), but also ran a POSIX API layer from the get-go. But that was a standard by then, so no really a "copy" of UNIX anymore.
-Dave Haynie
QDOS was actually quite similar to CP/M in it's structure, and CP/M86 was different in that it actually made use of the improvements offered in the 8086 processor. QDOS was written as if an 8080 to 8086 translator had been used to code it. However MS-DOS quickly moved away from this. What Microsoft sold was much polished over the original QDOS and CP/M OS's. They quickly improved the disk structure, FAT12 and FAT16 are different enough from the original CP/M disk structure. What they all STILL have in common is the use of the 0XE5 IBM uninitialized data marker in the FAT to show available space. This was a quick and dirty hack that allowed a freshly formated diskette to be used without having to initialize a directory structure on it.
Those accusations still sound like sour grapes from Gary Kildall. The Microsoft - IBM deal was genius. Gary sounds upset he did not have the foresight to make it happen. He had his chance. Heck, MS even suggested that IBM talk to Gary and the CPM guys when they were looking for an operating system. But, Gary refused to play ball. Too bad.
So, Microsoft stepped up to the plate. They bought QDOS, worked with it and wrote MS-DOS. Sure, it was not an extraordinary operating system. But it wasn't terrible, and it worked like CP/M in a lot of ways because MS certainly took ideas from CP/M. That's perfectly OK (maybe not these days, software patents etc...) They were giving IBM and their customers what they wanted when Gary and Digital Research decided not to. That's the genius of Microsoft. Realizing the spectacular deal to be had and standing up to IBM to sign an agreement that would make them the biggest software company ever; keeping ownership of their software, regardless of how much big blue pushed them around. Sorry Gary, you missed out.
Lastly, I doubt the young Bill Gates would hypocritically allow his company to stoop to coping code after he wrote this and sent it to many of his future customers:
Where did this idea ever come from? "Everybody knows" that Gates bought QDOS from Kildall and nobody ever claimed that QDOS was a "copy of CP/M," not even Kildall himself. What was in dispute was whether Kildall was literally out to lunch or flying, or whatever, brushing off the meeting and selling a license for what turned out to be a pittance. That's the legend anyway, but he's not here on this planet anymore to defend himself.
FFS. Want to know where DOS came from? Just read Tim Patterson's blog. http://dosmandrivel.blogspot.com/
He discusses the design differences between the two and why he did what he did.
And if you're really curious and need to feed the inner nerd, go have a look at the CP/M source code.
http://www.cpm.z80.de/source.html
--
BMO
Gate's bought the DOS operating system and sold IBM a License. He didn't sell them the damn code.
Because of this, I have to wonder why everyone is suprised that MS Wants you to License Windows instead of buying it.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
The fact remains that he did die conveniently in a plane crash just after failing to come to terms with MS.
Not true.
On July 8, 1994, Kildall fell at a Monterey, California, biker bar and hit his head. The exact circumstances of the injury remain unclear; however, he had suffered problems with alcoholism in his later years. Various sources have claimed he fell from a chair, fell down steps, or was assaulted because he walked in to the Franklin Street Bar & Grill wearing Harley-Davidson leathers. He checked in and out of the hospital twice, and died three days later at the Community Hospital of Monterey Peninsula. The coroner's report identified the cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head. There was also evidence that he had experienced a heart attack, but an autopsy did not conclusively determine the cause of death.
Gary Kildall
Concurrent CP/M 3.1 and later, and single-user CP/M-86 with BDOS 3.3 and later (including DOS Plus), allow CP/M programs to access DOS-formatted discs via conventional BDOS calls, emulating (as far as possible) the behaviour of a normal CP/M filesystem. The behaviour is probably a good starting point for anyone writing a CP/M emulator which uses a hierarchical or non-CP/M filesystem.
The FAT filesystem in 16-bit CP/M-86
To me this says that the original or "normal" CP/M file system was not FAT.
Insider trading isn't "considered" illegal, it IS illegal - there is a law against it. It is illegal because that is the rule for being a publicly traded corporation - everyone gets info affecting the price of the stock at the same time. If that were not the case, people inside the company could profit at the expense of the other shareholders.
None of that has anything to do with private dealings. In fact, it is likely that Gates was under an NDA and could not say anything about the IBM deal, as IBM had not yet announced the PC. Divulging the IBM deal could not only have insider information ramifications, but remember that at the time IBM was under a consent decree that prohibited them from 'pre-announcing' anything.