The last line is the most interesting, "In October 1980, Microsoft's Paul Allen contacted Seattle Computer Products and expressed interest in reselling 86-DOS. The first version of 86-DOS licensed to Microsoft was 0.3. In July 1981, just a month before IBM PC was announced, 86-DOS was sold to Microsoft and renamed to MS-DOS."
IBM reached out to Microsoft sometime in 1980 about an operating system, so SCP would've had at least 8 months to look into why Microsoft wanted their DOS before selling it entirely to them.
Did Microsoft resell 86-DOS to anybody before changing the name to MS-DOS? Did SCP make any effort find out why Microsoft wanted their DOS?
It's interesting...M$ is very sleazy in this, especially the way it turned out. Tim Paterson was clearly a great programmer. The really interesting person to me is Gary Kildall though, who I think invented a lot of the underpinnings of doing things with "microcomputers" and seems to have been a really great guy. Unfortunately, "business" is not about being nice (or having the best product).
Gates has been a minor obsession of mine over the years.....I'd like to see him make good on all the promises he's made to give away his wealth. There's a book on him I think is interesting called "The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire". I mean he's smart, smarter than me, but I don't think he's as smart as he thinks he is, or necessarily even doing that much good in the world. Some good, but a lot of trying to micromanage things he doesn't know much about.
IBM reached out to Microsoft sometime in 1980 about an operating system, so SCP would've had at least 8 months to look into why Microsoft wanted their DOS before selling it entirely to them.
Did Microsoft resell 86-DOS to anybody before changing the name to MS-DOS? Did SCP make any effort find out why Microsoft wanted their DOS?