Digital Research a Timeline
In the autumn of 1974, in a backyard workshop in Pacific Grove, California, a Navy computer science teacher named Gary Kildall booted the first working copy of CP/M - the operating system that went on to run on hundreds of models of early personal computer. This video follows Digital Research, the company he and his wife Dorothy McEwen Kildall founded to sell it, from that workshop to a courtroom in Utah.
CP/M's BIOS layer made software portable, and WordStar and dBase were written for it; by September 1981 more than 250,000 licences had been sold (InfoWorld). Then the IBM visit of August 1980 - what the Computer History Museum says actually happened, and why the 'he went flying' story is a myth - and how Microsoft bought 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products and kept the right to sell it to everyone. On the IBM PC, PC DOS cost $40 and CP/M-86 $240.
DRI fought back with Concurrent CP/M, the GEM desktop (and its life on the Atari ST), and DR DOS, a better DOS than DOS. Microsoft answered with per-processor licences, an early announcement of MS-DOS 5 and the AARD code hidden in Windows 3.1 test versions. Novell bought DRI in 1991; Kildall died in Monterey in July 1994, aged 52; Caldera bought the assets in 1996, sued Microsoft, and settled in January 2000 for $280 million, a sum kept secret until 2009. And the afterlife: the IEEE Milestone plaque (2014), CP/M's source code freed step by step from 2001 to 2022, and CP/M's fiftieth anniversary in 2024.
No figure appears without its date and source. Photographs are public domain or CC0, from Wikimedia Commons, credited on screen: Piotr J. Flatau; stiefkind (CC0); Swtpc6800 (Michael Holley); Bill Crouch; Vintageibmmt; Tandy Corporation; MKFI; Piero71 (CC0).
Educational documentary. Not financial or investment advice.
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Photo credits (Wikimedia Commons)
- IEEE Milestone plaque for CP/M (April 2014) at 801 Lighthouse Ave, Pacific Grove: Piotr J. Flatau, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AKildall_801lighthouse.jpg
- IMSAI 8080 opened - the kind of 8080 S-100 machine CP/M was built for: stiefkind, CC0 - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AImsai_8080%2C_opened_-_48930049626.jpg
- Altair 8800 with 8-inch floppy disk system - a typical CP/M-era 8080 machine: Swtpc6800 en:User:Swtpc6800 Michael Holley, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAltair_8800_Computer.jpg
- Adam Osborne with the Osborne 1, a CP/M machine, April 1981 (Oakland Tribune): Bill Crouch (-1998), Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAdam_Osborne_and_Osborne_1.jpg
- IBM 5150 Personal Computer with 5151 display: Vintageibmmt, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AIBM_5150_PC.JPG
- Bill Gates, Microsoft, November 1984 (Tandy 2000 running Windows 1.0): Tandy Corporation, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ABill_Gates_with_Tandy_2000_running_Windows_1.0_%281984%29.jpg
- Atari 520ST, the machine GEM lived on: MKFI, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAtari_520ST_Tietokonemuseo.JPG
- DR-DOS 6.0 user manual (Spanish edition): Piero71, CC0 - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AManualDRDOS60.jpg
- 8-inch, 5.25-inch and 3.5-inch floppy drives - the media CP/M and DOS shipped on: Swtpc6800 en:User:Swtpc6800 Michael Holley, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AFloppy_Disk_Drives_8_5_3.jpg
Primary sources
- Computer History Museum, David A. Laws, 'Fifty Years of the Personal Computer Operating System', 18 April 2024 - the 781 Bayview Avenue workshop, 1975 first licence, 1976 founding, 1978 and 1980 revenue, the IBM visit, $40 vs $240, Novell and Caldera. Read and quotations re-.
- IEEE / ETHW, 'Milestones: The CP/M Microcomputer Operating System, 1974', dedicated 25 April 2014 (801 Lighthouse Avenue and the Naval Postgraduate School).
- Computer History Museum press release, 1 October 2014 (CP/M source code); CHM blog, Leonard J. Shustek, 'In His Own Words: Gary Kildall', 2 August 2016.
- InfoWorld, Thom Hogan, 14 September 1981 (more than 250,000 CP/M licences), as cited in Wikipedia 'CP/M'.
- The Seattle Times, Paul Andrews, 'A Career Spent In Gates' Shadow - Computer Pioneer Dies At 52', 14 July 1994.
- IEEE Spectrum, Bob Zeidman, 'Did Bill Gates Steal the Heart of DOS?', 31 July 2012, with its editor's note.
- Andrew Schulman, 'Examining the Windows AARD Detection Code', Dr. Dobb's Journal, September 1993.
- US Department of Justice, complaint and proposed consent decree, United States v. Microsoft, 15 July 1994.
- Deseret News, 19 July 1991 and 30 October 1991; Tech Monitor, 29 October 1991 (Novell-DRI).
- Caldera v. Microsoft, D. Utah (72 F. Supp. 2d 1295, 3 November 1999); Dave Farquhar, The Silicon Underground; The Salt Lake Tribune, Tom Harvey, 7 October 2011 ($280m, $35.5m to Novell); Washington Post, 11 January 2000.
- The Register, 26 November 2001 (Lineo licence, Bryan Sparks email of 19 October 2001); The Register, Liam Proven, 15 July 2022; The Register, 2 August 2024.
- Wikipedia articles 'Gary Kildall', 'Digital Research', 'CP/M', '86-DOS', 'DR-DOS', 'GEM (desktop environment)', 'Caldera (company)', 'AARD code' -, used for dates and cross-checked where a primary page exists; OSnews, 30 August 2012 (GEM changes).
Not regulated financial advice.