Commodore Free 30/Commodore_Free_Issue_30_2009_Commodore_Computer_Club.d64/kildall legacy

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The Gary Kildall Legacy
by Sol Libes

Gary Kildall died in July 1994 at the
age of 52. The computer media, with a
few small exceptions, ignored his
passing. The Circumstances of his
death are pretty murky. One report
attributed it to a fall from a ladder,
another an incident at a bar, &
another to a heart attack.

Every PC owner owes Gary a debt of
gratitude. Bill Gates & Microsoft
owe him more than anyone else. Gary
was the first person to interface a
disk system to a microcomputer &
create an operating system for it. He
changed what had previously been a
circuit designed for process control
applications into a fully functional
computer.

Microcomputers now did tasks that
previously could only be done on
minicomputers & mainframes. The
world changed dramatically because of
his work.

Gary received a PhD in Computer
Science from the University of
Washington in 1972 & joined the
Navy. It is interesting to note that
both Gary & Bill Gates were born &
raised in the Seattle area. Like
Gates, Gary also had a passion for
computers. However; unlike Gates he
completed his college education. Their
paths crossed early on when Gates, a
high school student, & Gary, a college
student, both worked on the same DEC
PDP-10 computer system.

The Navy appointed Gary to be a
Computer Science instructor at their
Post-Graduate School in Monterey
California.

At the school; Gary purchased an Intel
4004 microprocessor chip set for
himself & his students to experiment
with. The 4004 was Intel's first
microprocessor & the first in the
world. It was programmable, handled
4-bit words & contained all of 2,250
transistors. Intel, at the time was
primarily in the memory IC business, &
created the 4004 as a custom project
for one customer. When the customer
wanted to renegotiate the price Intel
asked that they give up their
exclusive rights to the device.

Intel introduced the chip in NOV 71.
Much to Intel's surprise the device
was an instant success. Engineers
began designing it into a wide variety
of applications such as scales,
traffic light controls, musical
instruments, washing machines,
printers, & more; Intel soon realized
that 4004 system designers needed
software development support. Gary was
hired as a consultant to create a
programming language for the device.
Gary created PL/M (Programming
Language /Microprocessor) to run on
an IBM 360 computer & generate
executable binary code that was then
burned into the ROM memory of the 4004
system.

Marcian "Ted" Hoff designer of the
4004 (Who also worked later in his
career for Atari Corp), quickly
followed with the
8008, the first 8-bit microprocessor.
It was introduced in March 1972. Gary
was again hired to develop PL/M for
the device. Intel also designed an
8008-based small computer called the
Intellec-8, it was about the same size
as the IBM PC. The device was used for
hardware & software development. Gary
set one up in a classroom at school
for his students. To make it easier to
use Gary developed a simulator/
debugger program for the unit. Intel
began to see that microprocessors
helped sell more memory chips &
developed a much more powerful 8-bit
microprocessor the 8080. Gary was
again hired to create the development
software. He was given an Intellec-80
to use at school.

In 1973 Shugart gave Intel a sample 8"
floppy disk. Gary was immediately
intrigued by the device & with a
friend, John Torode, built a
controller interface to an Intellec-
80. Gary, & his students, wrote a
small control program, which he called
CP/M (Control Program/Microcomputer).
It enabled him to read & write files
to & from the disk. Gary copied the
commands & file-naming conventions
from the DEC PDP-10 VMS operating
system. Gordon  Eubanks, one of Gary's
students, created a BASIC interpreter
for the system. Early versions of CP/M
& the BASIC interpreter were in the
public domain since they had been
created at a publicly funded
institution. Copies found their way to
some other government contractors
& agencies.

In 1976, after his discharge from the
Navy, Gary became a full-time
consultant, using the name Inter-
galactic Digital Research. Together
with Torode he designed floppy disk
systems for several microcomputer
manufacturers.

At the time, MITS & IMSAI, the two
leading 8080 microcomputer system kit
makers, announced floppy disk systems.
MITS offered a version of BASIC
(written by Bill Gates & Paul Allen)
that could load & save BASIC
programs on disk. MITS contracted with
another software developer for a Disk
Operating System. When shipped in
early 1977, it proved unreliable &
had poor performance. MITS also
refused to license the DOS to other
system makers.

IMSAI, needing to compete with MITS,
approached Gary for a non-exclusive
CP/M license for a fixed $25,000 fee.
Since several other manufacturers also
wanted CP/M, Gary rewrote it
completely to make it easier to
install on different hardware systems.
He made it hardware-independent by
creating a separate module, which he
called the BIOS (Basic Input/Output
System). He also added an editor,
assembler, debugger, & several
utilities. CP/M became a full-blown
computer development system. Gary &
his former wife Dorothy McEwen formed
Galactic Digital Research Inc. (Later
it was changed to just Digital
Research, Inc) to market CP/M-80. They
placed a small classified ad in Dr.
Dobb's Journal & were surprised by the
large number of orders from hobbyists
for the $90 software package. By early
1977, several manufacturers were
including CP/M with their systems.
They provided a ROM-BIOS so that CP/M
loaded immediately on power-up.

By 1978 Microsoft BASIC & FORTRAN,
UCSD Pascal, MicroPro's WordStar,
Ashton-Tate's dBase, & other programs
were running on CP/M-based on
machines from Apple, Radio Shack,
Commodore, Zenith, Sharp, & almost a
hundred other manufacturers. In 1980,
IBM approached DRI, to license
CP/M-86, an 8086 version of CP/M
then being developed. Gary had been
working on this but delayed finishing
it while working on several language
projects. Intel had introduced the
8086 16-bit microprocessor in June
1978 & followed it a year later with
the 8088, a lower-cost & slower
version. IBM decided to use the 8088
for its new PC.

Seattle Computer Products in early 79
introduced the first 8086 computer
kit. Sales languished while SCP waited
for DRI to introduce CP/M-86. In
desperation SCP hired Tim Paterson to
develop a DOS for them. Tim quickly
created a simplified 8086 version of
CP/M, which he called QDOS (Quick &
Dirty Operating System, since it did
not implement all of CP/M's features).
Microsoft who were located nearby,
modified BASIC for the system.
IBM met with a cool reception when
they approached DRI for a CP/M
license. Dorothy McEwen & DRI's
attorney refused to sign the IBM non-
disclosure agreement (Gary did not
attend the meeting), refused to make
any modifications to CP/M-86 &
insisted on a higher royalty than what
IBM proposed. Bill Gates, who had been
negotiating a BASIC license with IBM,
seized the opportunity & offered to
provide a DOS/BASIC package to IBM
on favourable terms. Gates licensed
SCP-DOS (for $50,000) & hired Tim
Paterson to modify it to run on the
IBM-PC. Microsoft submitted a copy to
IBM for testing, who found over 300
bugs. IBM cleaned up many of the bugs,
made a number of improvements & wrote
the user manual. DRI released CP/M-86
soon after IBM released DOS Version
1.0. DOS had fewer features & poorer
performance. IBM offered both CP/M-86
& DOS. CP/M-86 was offered at $240
versus $60 for DOS. Few PC owners were
willing to pay the extra money DRI
considered suing Microsoft for copying
all the CP/M system calls, program
structure, & user interface. However,
DRI knew it would also have to sue
IBM. It knew it did not have the
resources for this & that its chances
of success were remote. In 1982, IBM
asked Microsoft to develop a hard disk
version of DOS. Microsoft used the
opportunity to completely rewrite DOS
so that version 2.0 was very different
from version 1.0 & DRI's opportunity
to sue was gone. DRI continued to
improve CP/M-86 introducing multi-
tasking & multi-user versions.
However, they were not completely
compatible with DOS & largely
ignored by the marketplace.

In1989 DRI introduced a DOS compatible
version (DR-DOS) this was recognized
as superior to DOS. However,
Microsoft marketing tactics (disclosed
in the Justice Department invest-
igation) shut DRI out of the market.
Microsoft responded with versions 5.0
& 6.0 incorporating many of DR-DOS
features.

Kildall also pioneered in the
development of a GUI (Graphical User
Interface) for the PC. Called GEM
(Graphical Environment Manager), it
was demonstrated at the NOV 83 COMDEX
& shipped in the spring of 84.
Atari also licensed it for use with
their new 520ST computers. GEM
presented the user with a screen
virtually identical to that of the
Macintosh, Apple threatened to sue.
DRI responded by making some cosmetic
changes to GEM. DRI did not recognize
the potential of a GUI interface & did
not put any marketing effort behind
it. DRI eventually withdrew GEM from
the retail market. It continued to
market GEM to software developers as
a front end for their graphics
products. The most well-known product
to use the GEM GUI was "Ventura
Publisher" from XEROX.

Microsoft finally demonstrated their
Windows GUI at the spring 85 COMDEX,
shipping version 1.0 in the fall.
Microsoft learned from DRI's
experience with Apple & made Windows
appear slightly different from the Mac
GUI.

Version 1.0 proved an embarrassment to
Microsoft; it was incredibly slow,
unreliable, & lacked the smooth
performance of GEM & the Mac, version
2.0 of Windows did likewise.
Windows was completely rewritten for
version 3.0 & released in the spring
of 1990, with the most expensive
software promotional campaign the
industry had ever seen coupled with
aggressive marketing (initial price
was $39 & thousands of copies were
given away free). Gates did something
that neither IBM, DRI, Apple, Xerox,
or the other GUI developers were
willing to do, namely, make a total
commitment, risking the entire company
on the success of a GUI.

Microsoft sought to gain the largest
market share by distributing Windows
primarily through OEM channels. System
manufacturers were persuaded to offer
DOS & Windows preloaded onto hard
disks by offering a low OEM price of
$35 on average while offering Windows
to retailers at $75. Microsoft
actually made more money on the OEM
version because the manufacturer
assumed the cost of printing manuals,
providing disk backups, the packaging,
& support. Version 3.0 also proved
unreliable, Microsoft fixed the bugs,
added a few minor features &
introduced it as version 3.1. Gates
turned a major problem into a
marketing success. 3.0 owners paying a
second time, in effect paid for the
repair of design defects.

Gary was also the first person to work
on the development of software for
driving CD-ROM interfaces. We will
probably never know all of the system
software work that he has created.

There is no doubt that Gary Kildall
led the way in microcomputer software
development. I wonder what Microsoft
will do now that they no longer have
Gary Kildall to lead the way for them?

Many ACGNJers met & spent time with
Gary at the 1979 Trenton Computer
Festival. I met with him many times,
as a magazine author & editor, &
President of ACGNJ. I developed great
admiration for his talents, his hard
work, & willingness to help others. I
will also miss him as a friend.


> From: Sol Libes
> Subject: [Fwd: Fw: Commodore Free
Magazine (The Gary Kildall Legacy)]
> To: Commodore FREE
>
> Hi Commodore Free,
> Gary Kildall was a very remarkable
person.  He & I were friends & I
was very upset when he passed away.
My article on Gary is not  copyrighted
& has appeared in numerous places on
the web. I do not know who put the
copyright notice on the article. It
should not be there. To know more
about Gary go to Wikipedia:
>
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
  Gary_Kildall>about him

> Sol

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