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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.
Cool free censorship.
"The rest of it, which they say did not reflect his true self, will not be made public."
how does anyone else know what is "his true self"?
why not allow the public to make up its own mind(or remain undecided) by reading it in full?
why should these academic(?) decide they should be gate keepers of "truth"?
> The rest of it, which they say did not reflect his true self, will not be made public.
Kidall was a giant influence on computing. When they say not his true self, they are I presume referring to the melancholy he fell into after the IBM deal crashed and burned. Many of us have to deal with professional failure sooner or later (What young grasshopper? You think you're immortal and Einstein and will be the next Apple? You have some soul breaking lessons ahead of you in life....) Learning about Kidall's journey could help others. Denying it doesn't help anyone, or take away from who Kidall was. It makes him more human. Only the truth can set you free.
Cue 300 posts about fateful IBM CP/M DOS day. Gates "Winners" version is widely accepted but that doesn't mean it's true. Journalists have looked closely into it and found there are so many different stories by those involved, inconsistencies and foggy memories that no one knows what really happened. Think unreliability of eyewitness testimony. Now add an Olympic size swimming pool of ego.
So this is a redacted memoir then. Slashdot headline seems to be somewhat misleading if they *for some uknown reason* cherry picked out details from the memoir.
As we know, censorship is really hard to do well. A copy has already been sold at auction And they quote some of the good bits: The trigger for writing the book was apparently his pique when the University of Washington asked him, as a distinguished graduate, to attend their computer sciences anniversary in 1992, but gave the keynote speech to dropout Gates. ...
"he said of Gates, He is divisive. He is manipulative. He is a user. He has taken much from me and the industry..."
Phil Katz, this guy, Andre Hedrick, Reiser, that racist Debian guy ... what's the deal with high performing IT people and self-destructive behavior?
dedacting the guy's real (& imagined?) sentiments no doubt not much mystery... cease fire.. spirit of creation remains undefeated.. despite constant growing onslaught of wmd on credit based life0cidal psychosis.. thanks again
How are ordinary people supposed to sell our memoirs if people can get the memoirs of some computer legend for free?
Censorship only applies when it's done by the Government.
Civil and criminal penalties for copyright infringement are enforced, well, by the Government.
The new norm in the digital age. I would have loved to have read this, having used CP/M, but I don't do EULAs.
The full version will appear on Amazon for $19.99 in a few weeks.
The entire rest of the book is just a rant about how he was screwed by IBM, Microsoft and DOS.
I liked Gary Kildall. He was a pioneer in the business-oriented microcomputer world. The first computer I owned was a Heathkit H-89 and it ran CP/M. It was an operating system geared more towards business, with a number of compilers, and applications like SuperCalc and VisiCalc available for it. In the late 70's to mid 80's it dominated the business microcomputer market and was very nearly a universal operating system among those kinds of machines.
Given the popularity of CP/M and the growing microcomputer market, it is understandable that Kildall would feel confident in how things were going. However, I wonder if he was not a little myopic. I think that IBM could see right away that their customers would not want to use their PCs as merely stand-alone tools, but as a device that would talk to the mainframe and mini computers. It probably did not matter much to IBM where the PC OS came from, so long as it could do the job. Since they had a veritable monopoly in business class machines, they could plop down whatever they wanted on customers' desks and their customers would buy it as long as it worked.
Was Gary screwed by Microsoft? Yes, to some extent, I think so. However, he had ample opportunity to recognize the potential of working with IBM and to capitalize on it. He made a poor choice. I would like to read his memoirs to get an idea if he was as myopic as I suspect him to have been.
Proverbs 21:19
the first computer I used was an Osbourne 1 running CP/M. Looking forward to reading the chapter...
Windows 10 ANNIVERSARY was FREE too. He could be full surveillance right NOW,but NO. Hell.
You need to know what to read, minus 1 means read the fuck out of that.
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!
Kildall said, Ms-DOS is basically pirated CP/M, except they got the error messages wrong.
I agree with this statement.
Kildall's family made a decision and they knew him best. I say, respect their decision. There are lots of people who seem to want to know everything about everything these days, and it's not always appropriate.
Kildall's business history is already very well known and he was cursed with being known as one of the big 'losers' in the PC revolution. On a personal level that must have been an albatross for him and his family. Show a little compassion and respect please. Kildall was important in the early days of PCs and that should be enough.
(Note: Not specifically or even generally directed at the parent).