Re: OT: Microsoft takes on history

["Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>]

Robert Dewar wrote in message
<5ee5b646.0205250319.324e9ff8@posting.google.com>...
>"Frank J. Lhota" <NOSPAM.FrankLho@rcn.com> wrote in message
news:<acmn8f$lmd$1@bob.news.rcn.net>...
>
>> In the first years of the IBM/PC, IBM and Microsoft were indeed
partners. It
>> was this partnership that produced MS-DOS as the standard OS for
IBM's first
>> personal computer.
>
>That's misleading. When the PC came out, it was sold without an
operating
>system. I remember well going into the IBM store (IBM was briefly in
the
>retail business) and buying a machine, and then I asked about the
operating
>system. I was pointed to a bin marked operating systems. I found UCSD,
CPM
>and MS/DOS. I bought a copy of CPM and MS/DOS, and played with both.
MS/DOS
>at that time was purely a microsoft product, and was not specially
pushed
>by IBM, although most certainly IBM had help cause it to be produced.
In
>practice MS/DOS won out in the market place over the other
alternatives,
>because for one thing it was a fraction of the price of the
alternatives.
>
>I think I still have my copy of CPM :-)

Robert's memory isn't quite right (or he came late to the PC), but it
isn't far off.

When the PC was originally introduced, it had three operating systems as
Robert mentioned. However, two of the bins (UCSD and CP/M-86) were
labeled "available soon". Everyone expected CPM to be the dominant OS.
However, it wasn't available until the following spring, so almost
everybody bought their PCs with PC-DOS (MS-DOS) installed.

We (R.R. Software) didn't buy one at all, since we had a Seattle
Computer 10 MHZ 8086 machine, which ran 86-DOS, which is what Bill Gates
bought for $50K to make MS-DOS. And that machine had double-sided 8"
disks, which held 1.2 Meg each, rather than the puny 160K of the PC. We
did some testing on a friend's machine to insure that Janus/Ada was
compatible.

By the time CP/M-86 did come out, so many people were using PC-DOS
(MS-DOS on clones) that it had already reached critical mass, and
CP/M-86 never caught on. (Probably because it really had no advantage
over MS-DOS.)

When the XT came out (with the whopping 10 Megabyte hard disk), we ran
out to get one. We managed to snag one of the original demo units (the
box had a large label saying "Do not open until <intro date>.") That
turned out to be lucky, because the IBM XTs mostly had an unreliable
hard disk; but the demo units had a more expensive (for IBM) german disk
that was rock solid. After the machine was no longer useful for
development, we ran our BBS system on it for years; it was still working
when we gave it to charity (which also was our landlord) in 1995(?). [He
promptly broke it. We could never get it working again after he took it
home.]

Sigh. Too much unimportant information.

                 Randy Brukardt.