On Thu, 15 Jun 2006 09:37:42 GMT
"Bob Ackley -> Ed Hulett"  wrote:

 BA> Replying to a message of Ed Hulett to Bob Ackley:

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

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

 EH>> That doesn't sound like how IBM did business back then, but I
 EH>> won't argue the point.

 BA> IIRC the story is on a CD-ROM collection of CP/M software put out by
 BA> Walnut Creek Software.

Could be.

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

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

 EH>> At one time I had an old Kapro running CP/M. It was quite a
 EH>> computer... with it's Zilog Z-80 cpu.

 BA> I still have three Heathkit H-89s, which are Z-80s; one got a brain
 BA> transplant in the 80s -
 BA> replaced the motherboard with a MicroMint SB-180 board, it was also
 BA> upgraded with the companion MicroMint SCSI controller and a 20MB SCSI
 BA> HD.  Also a Northstar Horizon, which
 BA> is an 8080.

You must have a large barn to hold all your toys. :-)

 BA> I have HDOS for the Heathkits in addition to CP/M (versions 1.6 and
 BA> 2.0).  FWIW, HDOS version 3.0 (which was never released) knocks the
 BA> socks off of DOS; unfortunately, it is proprietary and AFAIK runs
 BA> only on Heath (and Zenith) Z80 machines.  Dunno if anybody tried to
 BA> port it to the 8086.

I don't see why someone wouldn't have tried anyway.

For anyone wanting to play with DOS there is FreeDOS and OpenDOS, both
having 32bit capabilities.

OpenDOS is a free version of Caldara DOS (formerly DRDOS).

Ed

-- 
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; Wisdom is humble that
he knows no more. -- William Cowper

Registered Linux user #416016
Registered Linux Machine #323569

--- Sylpheed-Claws 2.1.1