CP/M Creator Gary Kildall's Memoirs Released As Free Download (ieee.org)

An anonymous reader writes from IEEE Spectrum: The year before his death in 1994, Gary Kildall -- inventor of the early microcomputer operating system CP/M -- wrote a draft of a memoir, "Computer Connections: People, Places, and Events in the Evolution of the Personal Computer Industry." He distributed copies to family and friends, but died before realizing his plans to release it as a book. This week, the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, with the permission of Kildall's children, released the first section and it is available for a free download. The rest of it, which they say did not reflect his true self, will not be made public.

Comments

Re:spoon feeding censorship?

[DarkOx]

Alcoholism and drug addiction are disease, now they are diseases where the victim is uniquely capable, positioned, and empowered to get well as compared with some like Parkinson but they are still a disease. In the sense they are a disease they make a person less than what they were mentally or physically in some way.

While drugs and alcohol can't excuse actions they way some other diseases like schizophrenia might because of the choice the 'victim' has they do explain them and they do make that person not their best self. I am not aware of Kildall having committed any serious crime or done anything out in society that we should hold against him. Mostly likely the people he hurt most thru his alcoholism were his children. If anyone is owed the 'truth' about their father its them, and if their decision is to have the rest of us rember Gary at his best, that is their choice and I think they have every right to make it.

I'd like to see it all

[Space Grrrl]

So I was lucky enough to have been around during those days. I had a small business that resold CP/M. I'd done an implementation for the Northstar Horizon. So I'd see Gary at conferences and trade shows and the hospitality events he threw for his re-sellers. He seemed appreciative and a pretty decent guy. I also got to see the younger Gates regularly. I have to say Bill was a bit harder to like in the early days. The software business for personal computers was a lot different then and it was those early personalities that got us to where we are today. I was sad when I learned how Gary went. He seemed to have deserved much better. I know I'd like to read his entire book as I know I'd not hold anything he wrote later in life against him. He clearly had some demons and definitely missed out on the next wave of the personal computers rise to popularity. So Digital Research is a memory, much like dBase, Novel (sorry, what they became was very different than they were then), MicroPro, and countless companies that bet on the Z-80 over the X86. But I think there would be value in reading Gary's later thoughts even if they may be colored by his personal struggles. I hope someday the rest is released. I sort of feel sorry for folks just getting into computers these days, those earlier times were insanely fun. So many new things emerging. We were drinking from a fire hose then. And Gary was a part of that. I guess thinking about this I should dig out an old Northstar and see if I can still get it to boot CP/M. I doubt I remember any of the command line operations! Good thing I kept all the manuals!