>>513174803 (OP)
When Kildall died, Gates had long won the OS battle and had nothing to fear from DRI. Gary liked high risk toys and though he was an affable person, like many nerds he didn't know when to keep his mouth shut. No idea if the biker explanation is correct or not but it's not unreasonable to think he may have said the wrong thing to someone wearing different leathers, not realizing that they would take it differently than the tech boys at the office would.
It might have been his love of flying to cost him the IBM deal, as he was out flying his personal airplane when IBM came to meet with him about using CP/M. He let his wife handle the negotiations with IBM and she got autistic over not wanting to sign a standard NDA. Gary also wanted a far higher licensing fee than Gates did. Microsoft winning the primary contract had more to do with Bill's mommy serving on the United Way board with the head of IBM than any weirdness with Kildall. IBM still licensed CP/M, but only as a secondary OS. Few picked CP/M because the license was so much more expensive.
>But QDOS
Yeah, that guy kind of got fucked but never would have made a deal with IBM himself and likely would have gone out of business like the other hundred or so makers of boutique operating systems. Also he's the one that doomed us all to use the non-standard backslash, so fuck him.
8/16/2025, 6:02:50 AM
No.513174803
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