Mail Archives: opendos/2000/11/02/10:33:37
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Simmonds" <chris AT 2net DOT co DOT uk>
To: <opendos AT delorie DOT com>
Sent: Sunday, October 29, 2000 2:27 PM
Subject: A little history
> In the beginning there was CP/M. Developed by Gary Kildall in 1974, it
> was based on some work he had been doing at Intel for their development
> systems (the PL/M language which ran on the Intel o/s called ISIS: I
> used it in the late 70's). CP/M was the least operating system you could
> have which would allow you to boot from an 8 inch floppy and get a
> command prompt. Kildall had also done a lot of work with DEC systems,
> and so he borrowed some ideas from them. The most obvious was "PIP"
> (Peripheral Interchange Program) which does the job everyone else calls
> COPY. Note that here is NO derivation from UNIX here, or even any
> indication that Kildall was aware of it. CP/M became hugely popular on
> all 8080 and Z80 based personal computers.
This is true. He actually started working on it back in 1972 for 4004 chip
when he wrote the PL/M language. By either late 1973 or early 1974 he had
completed CP/M for the 8080. He already had completed CP/M for the 4004 and
8008 chips. He also wrote PL/M for all three of these processors.
In 1972 after Kildall graduated from college, he formed a company named MAA
(Microcomputer Application associates.) He developed PL/M mostly from XPL
which had the full set of PL/I as did PL/M for the 4004 chip. He was a
consultant and worked with Intel, the first useable program he developed
with PL/M was a paper tape reader for the Intel 8008. This first program
eventaully evolved into the CP/M ED (editor) command. MAA was renamed to
Intergalatci Digital Research, which was later renamed Digital Research
Interglatic, which was later renamed Digital Research Inc. It remained
Digital Research Inc. until Novell bought it. The whole Kildall story is a
sad one. He was a very brilliant man yet everytime an oportunity came along
he just seemed to get the butt end of the deal. He did sell DRI for a
consideable sum of money. His story is somewaht similar to Ed Roberts story.
Both were brilliand and without them there may not have been the PC world
for many years. (In terms of IBM PC) Of course we did have the other
geniuses: The two Steves! (The Woz and Jobs)
However, MSDOS did not come driectly from CP/M. I'll address some of this
later.
> Then in 1980 it all started to go wrong. The exact details are shrouded
> in the mists of time and the dust of lawyers offices, but the result was
> that IBM, unsatisfied with DR's incomplete and behind schedule CPM/86
> took up with the company that was supplying their Basic interpreter -
> Microsoft. MS purchased rights to a CP/M clone from Seattle Computer
> Products for $50,000 and re-worked it along side IBM engineers to
> produce PCDOS (the IBM version) and MS-DOS (the generic version). It is
> said the MS made nothing much out of the deal with IBM but banked on
> there being a hardware clone market to sell to - which was smart or
> lucky depending on your world view.
There was also another little known reason why Gates got the contract with
IBM. IBM was not certain that they wanted to work in conjuction with any of
these small companies and was hesitent to deal with any of them. It was
because of Bill Gates' mother, who was doing charity work. Through her
charity work, the top brass of IBM was familiar with her. That is the main
reason that Gates was very lucky and got associated with IBM.
Neither Kildall nor Gates would have had a prayer. In fact It was Gates that
suggested to IBM that they check with his boyhood friend Kildall for their
operating system. It was also Gates that suggested that IBM go with the
8086. Believe it or not, IBM was going to design their PC using the
8080!!!!! Not even the Z-80!!! IBM had no clue what-so-ever about the PC
world. They were a giant in the business world and was clueless about the
small PC world. They had failed on two prior attempts to introduce an IBM PC
to the world. Even when IBM did introduce the IBM PC to the world they were
still behind the rest of the PC world by a long yard. A tandy Model I Z-80
2.5MHz PC could outperform the IBM PC.
Actaully this was not a clone of CP/M. It was based on CP/M but rewritten
for the 8086. SCP called it QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) and
later it was called DOS-86 and then finally PC-DOS for the IBM PC.
Now this is where things start to get tricky. PC-DOS 1 did not have any
subdirectory capability. i.e. there were no such commands as MKDIR (MD)
RMDIR (RM) or CHDIR (CD) and no:
.
..
MS took over writing DOS with version 2.0. They eliminated the CP/M
compatibilty and rewrote most of DOS. They retained the commands and much of
the original DOS and a few remanents of CP/M like FCBS. The new 2.0 had a
lot of stuff in it that could have come from UNIX. Also QDOS may have had
some stuff taken from UNIX.
It most likely was in the developement of DOS v2 that the UNIX connection
was implemented. I do somewhat like to distort it a little and say
UNIX->CP/M->DOS=>Linux, just to show we are making a complete circle and
back to where it all started from. It is only slightly exaggerated, but not
too far from the truth. It is more like a U-turn than a circle, but it just
looks better as a circle<grin>.
Pat
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