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 setting up
 BA>> the meeting in advance.  It wasn't a case of Kildall just refusing
 BA>> to meet with them or avoiding them, he didn't know they were coming
 BA>> and went on vacation.  I'm sure that had IBM contacted DRI in
 BA>> advance and set up the meeting that it would have happened - and IMO
 BA>> the world would be a better place.

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

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

 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 over the
 BA>> world, they were perfectly happy to provide the OS and let other
 BA>> people write the applications.  Note that at the time, DRI's
 BA>> flagship product CP/M was installed on a bigger percentage of
 BA>> microcomputers than M$ has now or FTM has ever 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.

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

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

--- FleetStreet 1.19+