The man who could have become Bill Gates

The legend goes like this: One fateful day in the summer of 1980, three IBM employees called in a group of hippie programmers at Digital Research Inc. (DRI) located in Pacific Grove, California. They expected to discuss the licensing of DRI’s industry-leading operating system, the Control Program for Microcomputers (CP/M). Instead, DRI founder Gary Kildall blew up the International Business Machine (IBM) for a ride on his plane and frustrated IBM employees turned to Gates for their operating system.

This anecdote has been told so many times that technologists need only remember “the day Gary Kildall flew” to remember the rest. Gates also offered to provide IBM with an operating system, although he did not have one at the time. This required a hasty purchase. While he is revered for his technical innovations, Kildall is believed by many to have made one of the biggest mistakes in trading history. The computer industry saga is rich with outsized characters and surprising plot twists, but there is one story that has risen over time to mythic proportions. It is the story of how software pioneer Gary Kildall missed out on supplying IBM with the operating system for its first PC, essentially handing over the opportunity of a lifetime and control of the future of technology to rivals Bill Gates and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT). In the process, he may have missed out on becoming the richest man in the world. The Book: They Made America by Harold Evans is sure to elicit howls of protest.

This is because it attacks the reputations of some of the key players of the early PC era: Gates, IBM, and Tim Paterson (b. 1956). “The Father of DOS”, an American computer programmer, the Seattle programmer who wrote an operating system, QDOS, based in part on CP/M that became Microsoft’s DOS. Paterson cringes, for example, at the implication that he is obsessed with his authorship of DOS. He has a profile on Forbes, designed as a first-person account. “I was 24 when I wrote DOS,” he begins. “It’s an achievement that probably nobody can ever repeat.” Evans claims that Paterson copied parts of CP/M and that IBM cheated Kildall, because Gates prevailed instead of the more innovative Kildall, according to the book, PC users around the world suffered more than a decade of crashes with an economic cost incalculable in data missed opportunities.

David G. Lefer, one of Evans’s two collaborators, says, “We’re trying to set the record straight. Gates didn’t invent the PC operating system and any story that says he did is wrong.” There is no doubt that Gary Kildall, an American computer scientist and microcomputer entrepreneur, was one of the pioneers of the industry. He invented the first operating system for microcomputers in the early 1970s, making it possible for hobbyists and businesses to build the first personal computers. Legalities aside, Microsoft’s original DOS was based in part on Kildall’s CP/M. His idea was that by creating an operating system separate from the hardware, applications could run on computers made by different manufacturers. On July 8, 1994, Gary Kildall (May 19, 1942-July 1994) fell in a Monterey, CA. biker bar during a biker fight and hit his head. The exact circumstances of his death and injuries remain unclear; Kildall’s colleagues remember him as creative, calm and adventurous.

Kildall preferred to put the IBM thing behind him and be known for his work before and after. He continually faced comparisons between himself and Bill Gates, as well as fading memories of his contributions. In addition to flying, he loved sports cars, auto racing, sailing, and had a lifelong love of the sea. Although his computing career spanned more than two decades, he is remembered primarily in connection with IBM’s failed attempt in 1980 to license CP/M for the IBM PC. Gates bought Tim Paterson’s program, called QDOS, for approx. $75,000, renamed it DOS, improved it, and licensed it to IBM for a low royalty fee per copy. The rest is history. (Bill Gates Net Worth: $53 Billion: 2010).

Paterson was in and out of Microsoft during the 1980s, but returned for good in 1990. Paterson has patents and industry awards to his professional credit (including the Stewart Alsop Hindsight Award in 1991, recognized along with Bill Gates). He’s retired now, but the prominent “First Place” trophies and clippings on the wall of his Building 2 office come from the world of off-road racing, in which he slams a four-wheel-drive Mazda down gravel back roads at the entire Northwest. “I’m still having a lot of fun,” he said.

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