Replying to a message of Ed Hulett to Bob Ackley:

 EH> Stac went out of business when drive sizes started hitting 1GB.

More to the point, when HD space became dirt cheap.  The same thing
happened to all the other folks that provided data crammers - except M$.

 BA>> FWIW, MS-DOS included copyrighted code lifted right out of Digital
 BA>> Research's CP/M-86.

 EH> DRI didn't do a thing about it.

 BA>> I don't know whether that code was legacy code from QDOS (the product
 BA>> Gates bought from Seattle Computer Products, hacked on a bit,
 BA>> renamed and packaged as DOS) or whether Gates copied the code
 BA>> himself.

 EH> It was legacy code from QDOS.

You state that like you are personally aware of the situation.  Since you are much
closer to the action than I am I will defer to you.

 BA>> Unfortunately, Gary Kildall, who owned DRI and wrote the code in
 BA>> question, did not push the issue at the time as it would have annoyed
 BA>> IBM, which was M$'s patron at the time.  At the time IBM didn't
 BA>> include an OS with its PCs, you could buy DOS with your PC for an
 BA>> extra $30, or you could get CP/M-86 with your PC for an extra $300.

 EH> IBM went with M$ DOS when Kildall flew off for a golf game instead of
 EH> meeting with IBM.

Note that the IBM reps showed up at the DRI door without setting up the meeting in
advance.  It wasn't a case of Kildall just refusing to meet with them or avoiding
them, he didn't know they were coming and went on vacation.  I'm sure that had
IBM contacted DRI in advance and set up the meeting that it would have happened -
and IMO the world would be a better place.

 EH> If Kildall had met with IBM M$ may never have grown to what it is
 EH> today.

That's true.  Kildall and DRI weren't on a mission to take over the world,
they were perfectly happy to provide the OS and let other people write the
applications.  Note that at the time, DRI's flagship product CP/M was installed
on a bigger percentage of microcomputers than M$ has now or FTM has ever
had.

--- FleetStreet 1.19+