How computer history ended
DDJ — 8086 and all that — It begins with Babbage and ends with this entry:
1980. IBM asks Gary Kildall to invent an operating system for the future PC, to be called OS/2. Kildall refuses, and then makes matters worse by flying around and around IBM headquarters in a biplane taunting the IBMers about “their silly blue shirts.” IBM hires Bill Gates to blow Kildall out of the sky with an anti-aircraft gun, and as a token of gratitude for accomplishing this successfully hands over the rights to all computing technology forever.
And that is the end of computing history.
Many a true word is spoken in jest.
The “silly” comment comes perilously close to the truth and we have been saddled with a horrible OS ever since.
Gary Kildall and CP/M (and MP/M as well as CP/M86),
may you R.I.P.