DR-DOS was surely the Cadillac of OS's at the time. As mentioned in the video, edlin was a confusing disaster and should never have made it in. RIP Gary. You were the better man.
Al, thank you for this series. I worked at Intel as a Contractor from 1996 to 2000 in their IT department. The biggest tragedy of that time was that Microsoft never faced the legal consequences of their Anti-Trust actions. But nature abhors any monopoly.... it is ironic that Microsoft, who called Linux a disease, now has to use it and will never truly control it. In the end, Gary was right about technology and what it means, not what it can buy.
@@jimdavis6833 @jimdavis6833 these days MS have a large connection to Linux- they contribute code to Linux, they offer Linux as a major platform in Azure, it underpins some of their cloud technologies and they made a campaign with Satya Nadella a few years back entitled "Microsoft love Linux". Not to mention Windows subsystem for Linux available for every Windows 10 & 11 PC, I'd say that MS have quite a lot to do with Linux these days!
@@AlsGeekLab ? The dude said Windows was based on Linux, which it is not. I never said there was no collaboration with Linux. That's a completely different animal.
This was outstanding documentation, professionally edited and it just shows why Gates is so hated by the older generation that witnessed his cutthroat behavior. Just watching the computer chronicles on UA-cam will give anyone a picture of what a soft-spoken and gentle personality he had.
Well done sir. I worked in Seattle in 1989, I upgraded from Windows 2.1 to 3.0. I heard the 'Gary went flying' story too, you're the first person to clarify the real events. Gates, Jobs, Ellison, the VC who pushed the Cisco founders out, they are MBAs. Edison and Tesla had their struggles with ruthless business thieves too. 'Keep one hand on your wallet when Gates is around' -Gary Kildall
!!! Tired of how these people proclaim they’re the backbone when everything they have is stolen intellectual content and innovation from people who don’t wanna profit off of everything
Heartbreaking... I had no idea about Gary, or what he has created, in all computer documentaries I have watch, there was only MS and Apple...incredibly sad and unfair. Thank you for opening my eyes to the truth, and may Gary's soul rest in peace.
As a longtime fan of Kildall's work, I was shedding a tear by the end of this video series... We all know life is not fair. But seeing the true visionaries like Kildall been sidelined by the corporate types, such as those behind M$ and IBM, will always sting! And it will always leave a bad aftertaste on the mouths of anyone who lived through the birth and evolution of the Personal Computer. Thank you for such a wonderful retelling of this story, and for helping to set the history record straight! I can only imagine how much research, scripting and editing work it took you to produce this series! A true masterpiece!!!
Gary Kildall was a true visionary. Thank you so much for doing this series it is top notch and everyone into computers or tech should watch it. Keep up the good work.
This man created the first operating system I ever used on a disk I owned. It was an Osborn Z80 machine I bought as a kit including a copy of CP/M in 1983. That was the entry into an IT career now lasting for 40y and still not over. It included having my own company together with an Gates-like a..hole (fun fact, he looked like Steve Balmer), who tricked me out if the company I originally founded. But at least I don’t try to flood frustration with alcohol. Life’s just too short to waste it.
Aww thank you so much for your kind words and your donation! I really appreciate it! Makes it all kind of worth all the hard work I went into making it!
Thank you so much for this series of videos, it has cleared up the history of PCs for me and I have a new appreciation of this forgotten pioneer and his tragic end. He achieved so much in his life and his contribution is immense, Gates' only achievement seems to be the greedy accumulation of wealth by questionable business practices
He really needed a good business manager. I don't know what his wife's background was, but he needed someone who could deal with the business and competition stuff. I do not understand why he interacted with Bill Gates ever again. I have had people in my life try to do very bad things to me (i.e. life-threatening). I have nothing to do with them. Gary should never have taken a call from Gates or MS again. When Gary saw that Gates was the keynote speaker, Gary should have gone home. Life it too short to waste on horrible garbage people who want to do harm to you.
They weren't. DR DOS was done in the UK, and to the best of my knowledge (as someone who worked at DRI from 1984-1990), he had no involvement with GEM. Lee Lorezen is probably most responsible for GEM.
That was excellent Al. Such work requires an enormous amount of research and editing. I'm glad you undertook the project and made what is perhaps the definitive presentation of Gary's key moments and the people and events involved.
Really nice work. Gary Kidall was a visionary, an incredibly skilled engineer, and one of the finest people I've ever known. His ability to see the importance of CD-ROM was prescient.
This should be world wide knowledge. Also learn from the mistakes of others, how just postponing a flight ✈️ and seeing the management and reading the non-disclosure himself would of had taken another course, however; maybe the meeting was just a cordial conversation in order to gain access to Digital Research code. This was exquisite to watch! Gary Kildall was a pioneer and a pivotal part in the revolution of computers/PC. ❤
Awesome video series chronicling the life of Gary Kildall and his Digital Research company. The presentation goes into detail how Gary drove the development of the microcomputer operating system and associated BIOS. Also covered is the most accurate and complete description of how Microsoft co-opted CP/M for its own use, while debunking the contrived 'airplane' account that has been spread around to cover Bill Gates's nefarious activities. The presentation accurately describes how DR's interactions with IBM were far more nuanced than what I could have imagined. In summary, the video series does justice to Gary Kildall, securing his legacy as one of the greatest pioneers of the development of microcomputers, on par with the likes of Apple's Steve Wozniak and Robert Noyce of Intel. Kudos!
The Amstrad 1512 and 1640 were awesome machines for their time, and having them ship with GEM with the special hybrid hi-res Amstrad CGA support was kinda the icing on the cake IMO.
So sad. I had a "friend" like that - never the creator, just the stealer and destroyer. Scripture says that the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. How many others that we will never know about have been destroyed by the thief that eventually killed Gary?
That nicely made up woman said that GAK wasn't the only victim of a ruthless man without scruples. IMO Gates and Stalin were cut from similar weaves of cloth.
A fantastic look at a truly legendary and much under-appreciated man. I wish he was still with us. Thank you for getting a very well researched version of the Intel story out. Excellent work.
If the rest of your videos are this good, I will look forward to seeing your channel grow and the new stuff you make! Thanks for the clarification of the key events and people that created the microcomputer revolution. I got my start in computing in a small business running CP/M helping my mom and dad run a small high performance auto engine machine shop.
I hope you're subscribed now! I always try to put out high quality stuff, that's why I don't release often. I take my time with research and editing etc. Unfortunately UA-cam prefers fast and often and as a result, my channel never really grows that much, so I'm reliant on people like you sharing it on social media and with friends etc. I've been pumping out similar documentaries on this channel as you may have seen, since 2019.
Perhaps a better title for the series could have been, Who we could have had instead of bill gates. Thanks for dispelling some of the misinformation surrounding Kildall, CP/M and DRI. The intelliphone would have been smart phone with a monochrome LCD with Wi-fi and internet. The Intelliphone likely would have launched in 1995 along with Kildall's completed book and could have easily toppled microsoft. Would you buy a desktop PC with Win95 or a smartphone. Just think of how big the first iPhone was in 2007, and then imagine that in 1995. IBM had a similar product called the IBM Simon which was not successful because the in house software made it to slow. In 1995 Apple was almost broke and the internet was just about ready to go mainstream. The industry was ripe for disruption. Kildall could have really turned the tables on microsoft, which is what makes his death all the more suspicious. Kildall's contributions are truly foundational to the computer we all take for granted today.
Every time I learn something about CP/M or see it in action I get more respect for it and Kildall. The man is (awe) inspiring as a computer scientist. Something that can not be said about "icons" Gates and Jobs. They are business men first, marketing men second but gave us nothing substantial. Yet they have statues and will probably remembered forever. No so much Kildall and Woznaik. We as a people need to change, not them.
I disagree, Jobs made Apple a Trillion Dollar company and he indeed designed the Iphone. Gates also has his good points as well. I feel sorry for Gary but I am not going to take away from any of these tech giants. I also Respect the works of Richard Stallmen and Linud Torvald as well.
This. This is the type of content I come to youtube for. It is a terrible shame that it comes from small channels that deserve way more recognition than they get. Thank you sir. Thank you for doing what you do and doing it so well. I hope you see the success that you deserve.
Awesome compilation, but it makes me so sad for what happened to Gary Kildall. Gary was a visionary and a true and honest contributor to the development of computer technology, but was undermined and exploited by business opportunists.
Thank you for posting this series; it was very informative. Around 1992, I started working at the Naval Postgraduate School. One of my supervisors was a woman named Kathy Strutynski. She worked with Gary at both the Naval Postgraduate School and Digital Research, and she had very interesting stories about her experiences with Gary Kildall and Bill Gates.
Thanks! I wasn't sure if this was going to serve me well in terms of UA-cam algorithm, but I think as a viewer, it's what I would prefer. As it was roughly 1.5hrs, splitting into 3 made sense...
Thank you for creating this. The larger names in the industry can seem to overshadow true those who can truly inspire and I honestly feel back that I knew nothing about Gary Kildall when I have seemed to have focused on what Hollywood shines the light on as intellectual history. This documentary was insightful and filled with well presented information. My thoughts go out to the Kildall family for the tragic loss of their loved one and I hope that more people will be able to learn how Gary really motivates someone like me to learn and improve at my work today.
Well Al... this story really touched me... and teached me many of the obscure parts I never heard before. A giant thanks to you and to Gary Kildall for all its incredbile work.
Ooo I see you have Gary on CC holding a CED (Capacitance Electric Disc). It's the purpleish disc that is in the blue caddy. These things are neat. They aren't optical discs at all. They play back video in a CED player with a 'stylus' that rides over the microscopic bumpy surface of the disc. This forms a varriable capacitance as the disc plays, and this is where the information is recorded. I still have a working player and a few discs. Blue caddy means it's got stereo sound!
I really enjoyed the documentary. Glad I stumbled upon it. My take: The flight aspect of the story seems like an unnecessary distraction. Ultimately, DR and IBM did sit down to try and negotiate an agreement but Kildall wasn't willing to negotiate licensing terms anywhere close to what IBM wanted. Whatever happened in regards to the flight, the outcome would have been the same. IBM wanted to keep an option with DR on the table so there was some kind of verbal agreement to avoid burning any bridges. IBM obviously had that backup plan in their mind in regards to the alleged ripoff option, and decided it would work best if Microsoft collaborated with them on it. Gates had initially tried to bring DR and IBM together in order to help achieve the aspect of the deal Microsoft wanted, but he was never going to risk his own company in order to help DR when it was made clear to him IBM didn't like what Kildall was proposing. I believe IBM were the biggest villains in this story at these earlier stages. Microsoft would later go on to play the role of the industry bad guys with utter ruthlessness. In these earlier days though, Microsoft did what was necessary to ultimately take IBM out of the game in a way that I can't imagine Kildall would have done. We should be cheered by the fact IBM were architects of their own downfall when they decided to go all in with Microsoft.
Excellent series. Also top marks for mentioning James Burke 'Connections' which is still worth a watch today. I saw it as a teenager when it first came out and it really got people thinking. It's what TV should of been used for instead of Valium to placate the masses.
I appreciate that! Could I ask you a huge favour? Can you share it on your socials , especially Reddit , hackernews but any ones would be so wonderful. It would really help get these videos out to a wider audience 🙏 thank you!
Thanks so much for this. I had known about CPM forever, but just this year I started writing a CPM 3 BIOS and really got to know the system. Oh I wish I had CPM as a kid instead of DOS. Even before this series, I had the dream that CPM could be the OS of choice for all the modern retro systems, like rc2014 and the like. And this series has made that even stronger. Let's make CP/M great again, in honor of Gary. Rest in Peace.
Microsoft had Paul Allen and Bill Gates, Apple had Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, but DR did not have a business guy to match up with Gary. He would have benefited from a business partner. Still, he did good in life and is remembered by us old computer nerds. It's not like he died broke , he did have a pretty good life.
Thank you sooo much for your super thanks! I really appreciate it! It took a lot of research and effort to make the series, so I'm glad that is showing through!
I built my first computer on the kitchen table around an 8080 microprocessor. Found out and implemented Gary Kildall's CPM operating system. You had to write your own device drivers, etc. Amazing technology at the time. Started a software company years later that paid off our mortgage based on Gary's hard work. We eventually joined the SPA ( software publishers association) that had it's annual AGM at the hotel Dell Coronado in San Diego. Bill Gates was the keynote speaker. Sat at a round table with Mitch Kapur and other software notables. I told my wife that one bomb could have taken out the entire USA software industry that night. Later ended up suing the State of California for software piracy (see BV engineering vs UCLA). That went all the way to the US Supreme Court. Unfortunately our efforts ended up making Microsoft a lot of extra money. Gates never thanked us.
Very well done documentary about computing history at all, but could you slow down that scrolling text so you could actually read it without waiting for narrative to catch up
Amazing video! Great work! I used DR-DOS as a kid on an IBM 286 but I only knew how to run Prince of Persia and how to access the puzzle game in Fox Pro. :D
Great series. I enjoyed "Why and How IBM ended up creating the PC" too. I need to fix and old IBM 5151 monitor too. Subscribed. Thanks for the work. Cheers
My first computer as a kid was one made by “Molecular Computer”. It was a computer that my father’s business had used and then retired. It was massive, and had 3 3ft tall towers. -Each with a huge 5mb hard drive, and a single 8.5inch floppy disk drive. Probably circa mid 1980s or so. It ran MD/M, and supported around 10 terminals. I remember to this day how well it just worked, and I also remember how disappointed I was when we got our first Mac finding out it couldn’t multitask. For an OS of that era, MD/M was incredibly stable, speedy, and useful. It was obviously something designed by someone who had a true gift for software. Microsoft is good at acquiring and copying. Gary was good at innovation, and it’s sad the direction his life took later on. We’d probably be much further along if the /Ms became the defacto standard instead of MS.
Holy Mackrel! That did *not* end how I was expecting it! - good series - I was vaguely aware of DR DOS at the time and had heard some of the stories but never the full story before 😵💫
Great series, and thanks for clarifying the truth (I already knew most of it as I was around at the time, but others wouldnt). I was an 8 bit CP/M user in the early 80's (both at work, paid for, and at home on a homebrew system with ripped off copy -- my 'justification' being that those of us enthusiasts who used it like that were actually promoting and evangelising it, especially as most of us ended up influencing our later employers etc and their buying decisions and/or worked in and helped drive and develop the entire PC industry.) I also actually later worked at Digital Research, in the UK, in 1986-88. Much of the development of Concurrent DOS and Concurrent DOS/386 [later versions of Concurrent CP/M], and of DR-DOS were done in the UK. I did visit the Monterey head office briefly but unfortunately never met Gary.
Also the story (probably true but I cant verify it) is that Amstrad bought (licenced) DR-DOS as a lever to get MS-DOS at a cheaper price from MIcrosoft (Alan Sugar being an even toughter businessman than Microsoft !)
I used Caldera Open DOS for the workshop server at the computer company I worked for. It served the hard disc images across the network for building the PC's to sell to customers. From memory it included Personal Netware and SpaceWars.
Thank you! Unfortunately I have had some bad feedback recently which is making me question whether I continue this hobby, but I'll hope that individual decides against his curious methods
@@AlsGeekLab There will always be detractors in life, If you believe in what you do you go forward. If it's going to stress you out to much then it is not worth it. Wish you the best in what you decide. 👍
@@skelious thank you. I hope with my videos that the passion for entertaining people through the months of research and editing effort comes through. Unfortunately there are always one or two people that enjoy taking this enjoyment away from everyone else. Very sad.
Watched the series, subscribed. Please keep the quality up! Love it. I have my DR-DOS disks here, somewhere (ive moved house.... might find them in the next decade).
What a great documentary/series! Gary Kildall was an excellent engineer, a true father of what most of us take for granted today. Unfortunately (as in most cases in life) it's not the great mind and a great heart that wins... It's a shame his work is (mostly) underappreciated...
Al, I've only just watched part I, but came here to comment on part III because it has less (fewer, but who cares) views and therefore the odds of this comment being seen is far greater. You are making a grave mistake, I think. UA-cam likes daily releases, but within reason, and I believe in this case releasing all three parts so soon one after the other is a bit of a shot to your foot. I of course love that I can just watch everything at once, but the algorithm values retention, not only during the video, but also retention of the viewer in the website - and it also values impression conversion/click through rate, so for every 1000 people the algorithm shows the video, how many click it and watch. I think the way you released these videos fails to maximise those factors. I was completely captured by the narrative, and will stay gripped until I watch all three, but since they are all a bit longer than the usual video, I'll probably leave the website after the third one. Which is bad for you. Secondly, I was shown part I by the algorithm, and clicked through - but what if it had shown me part III, a later part of a series I don't know? maybe I would have clicked to check the channel and find the first, maybe not. But what I DO know is that the algorithm does not like suggesting "old" videos, or videos that are not the latest from a creator. If there was only Part I the algorithm wouldn't have to choose, that alone could secure more impressions to the first part and maybe increase its click through rate, then when growth had stunted you could release part II, and let it reap the rewards of a more favourable recommendation index (algorithm score), and so on. It would also give the benefit of making people more curious and excited for the new releases, inducing more people to subscribe, maybe, and giving a (at least) minor boost in viewership to the later parts as they release. Lastly, as I stated at the very beginning, the algo like frequent releases. From the quality and length of part I (the only one I watched so far) and expecting similar quality from parts II and III, I doubt you made each in a couple of days, which means that for the next couple of days or weeks or months there won't be new submissions. This is "bad" for your rating... Even if this is your preference, doing it all uninterrupted by releases, you could have at least staggered them, and use the time afforded by the unloading of ready work, to work on the next project or w/e... But you know, I'm just some guy in the comments.
Good series. The earliest days when people could have their own computers were certainly wild. In a way, I miss them, but on the other hand, I'd never go back. It's interesting to speculate what our world would be like today if the corporate money grubbers-IBM & Microsoft-had stayed away, even for a few more years.
DR was sued by Apple over similarities between GEM and the Apple Mac. Version 2 of GEM was a significant downgrade to satisfy Apple. Apple never sued Atari so they continued to use and develop the original version
@@MrRmeadows They didn't disappear. I remember the fierce wars between Visual Basic 6 and Borland Delphi 7 (I think). They fought tooth and nail. But it was Java that killed them. And Microsoft's alternative to Java, DotNet which kept Visual Basic in the game, which Borland wasn't able to compete. This time Microsoft was kind of fair (forgetting about the JScript, which was the Microsoft's copy of Java from earlier that went nowhere) , it was after the anti-trust put fear in their hearts, but that was later 2003/2004. DotNet and Java were clearly better than Borland. Which I remember was the year I started my career of software developer. And I remember Borland's slow death, I don't know what happened to them, but by 2010 they were done.
And yes, DotNet was a copy of Java, but by the time the Version 2.0 of it came, it was already better than Java because they were ruthlessly in making the thing better, which is how you fairly compete. Copying things are fine as long as you make them better, don't just copy them, that's stealing. DotNet 2.0 (in 2004) was so ahead that it took 15 years for Java to have the same features, some features would only appear in Java 8 (cof, cof, lambdas). Also the type system of C# is way better than Java, its theoretically better, the computer science foundation is just better, Java has problems of soundness to this day. But that's story for another day.
Great documentary! There is also a book I can highly recommend to read. It is from a German author named Ralf Kern from 2004. Sorry, I only know the German title "Der Kampf um DOS: IBM, Microsoft und die Geburt des PC". which translates to "The battle over DOS: IBM, Microsoft and the birth of the PC". This book describes in highly detail how Gates slowly pushed DR DOS out of the market with "questionable" methods. Anyway... I enjoyed every minute of your series. Thank you!
"Well, it seems to me that he did have an education to get there. It happened to be mine, not his." Good Lord, that line cuts like a knife... I can not imagine the betrayal and hurt Kidall felt watching this thief on the stage, stealing yet another part of his legacy to the world. To see his rapid decline over the following two years goes to show just how badly this hurt ate at him...
Yes, although he died a rich man, I don't think the money ever mattered to him that much. His one and only passion was taken from him and that's what hurt him the most
Thanks for explaining in simple terms what transpired in the making of the desktop. Writing from Africa where we had no computers then, it is very educative. We are grateful to Gary for the technological innovation and Gates for the business acumen to make it cheap. Without both, we would be at the mercy of the giant IBM.
Thanks for fixing the "He was off flying" Bill Gates' fake news. It was interesting to find out that a BIOS was Kildall's idea. I worked with MP/M for 4.5 years in my first programming job in the early '80s on an ALTOS computer.
I was using GEM Desktop in the late 80s on my brilliant Amstrad. By the mid 90s I was wondering why Windows was so rubbish on my 486, which seemed to not improve much at all. I could never understand why it took another two decades to get back to the stability and reliability of that GEM desktop I had taken for granted in 1989... Then I learned about Digital Research and finally realised that Windows and GEM were not the same people. Now I dream of a utopian parallel dimension where Gary, and not Bill, is still living... And our computers are a hundred times better at doing everything, including our privacy!
Jimmy Dell: I think you'll find that if what you've done for them is as valuable as you say it is, if they are indebted to you morally but not legally, my experience is they will give you nothing, and they will begin to act cruelly toward you. Joe Ross: Why? Jimmy Dell: To suppress their guilt. -The Spanish Prisoner (1997)
Great series. I for one loved TOS/GEM on the Atari ST. It was so far ahead of Windows, or the crippled PC version of GEM for that matter. But the ruthless marketing of Gates won in the end with an inferior product. Sad it went that way, but unfortunately that is the world we live in.
Great series of videos. A few years ago I was watching old Computer Chronicles episodes, and Gary mentioned GEM only needed 512k to operate. I have a Compaq Portable II and I'm curious if Open GEM would run on it? I had a version of FreeDOS with had Open GEM installed on it, however I didn't get any of the modules configured properly.
The biggest challenge and problem for technical geniuses and nerds is not realizing they need to hire a business mind to run the show for them, not their girlfriend or best friend or brother or dad. That’s how so many good ideas died and how we get gizilion linux distros
Thanks for really putting into context Bill Gates behavior. In a way it was a decent gesture to refer IBM over to Digital Research. For their part IBM represented just as much the ruthless behavior that Bill exemplified. Had they come to a fair agreement with Digital then both would have profited and Microsoft would have been a bit player. Maybe they are just as much to blame as Bill for Gary not getting what should have been his. It makes you wonder if Bill has carried on his slightly devious ways into all the non-profit work he does these days with third world development, disease eradication and all the farmland purchases. It is sad that we don't have Gary as an aging guru like Woz. Truly he was one of the greats. Sometimes people will take from you what should be yours. The lesson here is you have to let it go and find happiness anyway.
Brilliant. While I'm very cynical about the beatification that Kildall has undergone (i am very suspect given that so many of Gary's own recollections about the IBM deal are provably false) this is probably the most balanced view I've seen of it. And don't get me wrong, he was definitely screwed over and I am by no means a Gates fan on any level. But my take is more that he wasn't the man who should be Bill Gates - at the time he *was* Bill Gates and he basically owned the serious microcomputer market. And just like Gates, that lead to complacency and arrogance and a belief his market position was so strong it was unbeatable. That lead to him feeling he didn't have to play ball by IBMs rules because they were now playing in his court - and that mistake cost him dearly when he failed to realise he was against someone (Gates) more devious and ruthless than he was.
I don't think it was arrogance or complacency, it was thinking the market would be smarter. The IBM 5150 did not move the needle much from the Tandy Model III or the average CP/M machine showing the rush job IBM did in designing the 5150. Even the 5170 didn't give the user any advantage over a Tandy Model 16 when came to running Unix. If consumers at the time acted rationally then the IBM PC would have early success then the whole platform would have died off as people saw it was not keeping up with its competition on the Motorola 68k platform.
@@Psy500 the thing is, Gary had already told others that when IBM entered the game he felt there would be a definite split in the market - IBM for business, other computers for the home. Jobs said that Gary was one of the people who warned him IBM was going to sweep the business sector if it released a micro computer and Gary gave answers to that effect in computer magazines. I don't buy that Gary went from presciently noting the power of IBM and it's likely dominance of at least a large part of the market to thinking the 5150 would fail? I think some mythmaking has gone on there. Maybe he did think it would fail but it seems strange. I think it more likely he knew IBM was a big deal, he overplayed his hand without realising it, and by the time he did it was too late. Then we have thirty years of myth making on top of that.
@@medes5597 If IBM was selling a CP/M or Unix machine yhea they had a pretty good machine but even TRS-Dos didn't fully displace CP/M on the TRS-80 as CP/M had the advantage of being easier for multi platform releases. Then you had Dos not even take advantage of the 5170 which is why we had the 640k limit as IBM waited too long to make a standard for memory above 1Meg of address space, this after Tandy got flack for TRS-Dos not taking advantage of the Model 16 (and users having to wait for Unix) but for some reason IBM failings didn't tank the platform. I think if CP/M (and MP/M) lost to the likes of Amiga Dos, OS-9 or Unix that actually surpassed MP/M in functionality that Gary would not have felt as bad about it but instead it lost to a clone of CP/M that spent the 80s not getting much better.
This is pretty much my view. I certainly can respect the influence and ingenuity of Gary Kildall's offerings in the computer marketplace, but I don't fully buy his version of events either. I'm also sure Bill Gates played to win like he always did, and many times that attitude manifested as cutthroat behavior, but I also don't think Bill's aggressively competitive behavior was akin to thievery or backstabbing. It would have been nice if Al's Geek Lab had included Bill's statements about Gary's death in this video too, instead of just saying he didn't show up at the funeral. Though I don't think the most die-hard anti-Gates individual would be swayed by Gates' comments on Gary, but if taken at face value, Bill seemed like respected Gary's intelligence, which is probably why he saw fit to label him a threat. The truth is much like you say, Gary overplayed his hand and Bill saw an opportunity and took it. I mean, if Bill were going to play cutthroat and steal from Gary, why would he have sent IBM to Gary in the first place? With the utmost respect to Gary, I think he didn't want to take responsibility for his hubris and sought to blame others for this failure. But ultimately Gary's contributions shouldn't be just a footnote in history. Indeed Gary played a critical role in the early development of PCs, and his work with CP/M and optical disks were at least 10 years ahead of the competition (yet another reason for Gates to be fearful). I place Kildall along the likes of Woz and Noyce as the hidden genius behind the advancement of early technology.
@@OzzFan1000 I think IBM over played their yet it didn't bite them in the ass til years later. Large companies on the other side of the Earth like NEC and Sharp had no problems with CP/M's arrangement as they saw it worth also selling to the CP/M market and the 5150 sold like crap as a CP/M machine. The deal with Microsoft also was crap, IBM couldn't get what they wanted out of them which is why they took over for Dos 3.3 then after that split PC-Dos forked from MS-Dos and IBM never could get Microsoft on the same page with OS/2. If IBM just did what everyone else did and went with CP/M till they could get their own OS established then IBM probably could have fended off the clones better.
Thanks, Brilliant. Nearly been involved in industry 40 years on and off. And sadly, business ruins good ideas and wealth isn't a sign of innovation. To Gary's family, your father, husband was what seems a great person, sadly as more often is the case. Let down by those whom he trusted the most. Foresight is a double edged sword, hindsight is there to learn from, but deception negates everything. :) :(
My first computer after my CoCo2 was an Amstrad PC1512DD I received second-hand from my grandfather when I was in fourth or fifth grade. It came with both MS-DOS and DR-DOS, and I used to LOVE GEM Desktop. Little did I know how much history was overflowing with that machine and software in front of me.
The story (probably true but I cant verify it) is that Amstrad bought (licenced) DR-DOS for their new low cost PC1512 as a lever to get MS-DOS at a cheaper price from MIcrosoft (Alan Sugar being an even toughter businessman than Microsoft !)
never liked Bill Gates. always saw him as a brat, having read up on his childhood and watched docus, and it was proven when he rocked back and forth during the Netscape hearing like a little kid that took one too many candy. I knew there were shenanigans with freedos, qdos etc. I tried to read up on it on wikipedia couple of months ago but was left unsatisfied, because I felt the topic was very poorly covered. Thanks for this
I'm sorry, I made attribution to everywhere I had a source for as you can see in the credits. I obtained all images from creative commons licenced material, according to google, please provide me your name and any details and I will attribute you in the description. The use of these images is purely to tell the story.
Like many of the commentors I followed the whole saga, I was there back when Bill would pick up the phone in Albuquerque. Then Microsoft binders were Brown not Blue. I made hardware for the ported Bill's paper tapes to Phillips cassette audio that I sold with paper tape and my audio cassette to plug into S100 bus IMSAI and other computers, including MDS-800. I also had one of the original Altairs.
Gary seems like the guy who invented the intermittent windshield wiper for cars. He sued the auto makers for many, many years and died early. Only the, did the automakers settle the case.
There are some similarities with Linus Torvalds. Linus is a way bit more "abrasive" as he stated himself. They both developed an OS out of their own needs. They both share the technical background. They both want(ed) everyone to profit and learn from it. I'd personally would like to take a drink with both of them - not those greedy business guys like Jobs, Gates or Balmer... they gave me creeps at every public presentation in the 90's.
I was a DR-DOS user back in the day, and knowing this story makes me feel even better about that choice.
Dr-dos sure was better than ms dos! No doubt about it
DR-DOS was really great for me on a 286. MS-DOS was always horrible.
DR-DOS was surely the Cadillac of OS's at the time. As mentioned in the video, edlin was a confusing disaster and should never have made it in. RIP Gary. You were the better man.
Al, thank you for this series. I worked at Intel as a Contractor from 1996 to 2000 in their IT department. The biggest tragedy of that time was that Microsoft never faced the legal consequences of their Anti-Trust actions. But nature abhors any monopoly.... it is ironic that Microsoft, who called Linux a disease, now has to use it and will never truly control it. In the end, Gary was right about technology and what it means, not what it can buy.
Thanks very much for your kind words!
Not true. Windows has no connection to Linux.
@@jimdavis6833 @jimdavis6833 these days MS have a large connection to Linux- they contribute code to Linux, they offer Linux as a major platform in Azure, it underpins some of their cloud technologies and they made a campaign with Satya Nadella a few years back entitled "Microsoft love Linux". Not to mention Windows subsystem for Linux available for every Windows 10 & 11 PC, I'd say that MS have quite a lot to do with Linux these days!
@@AlsGeekLab ? The dude said Windows was based on Linux, which it is not. I never said there was no collaboration with Linux. That's a completely different animal.
@@jimdavis6833 which dude said that? I don't see any comments relating to that statement
This was outstanding documentation, professionally edited and it just shows why Gates is so hated by the older generation that witnessed his cutthroat behavior. Just watching the computer chronicles on UA-cam will give anyone a picture of what a soft-spoken and gentle personality he had.
Totally agree! Thank you!
Steve Jobs idem dito. Developed nothing: most overestimated person on earth bar none. I like Wozniak better.
@@meneerjansen00 And Paul Allen, who was the real code genius behind Windows.
Indeed this world is full of Khazarian jews such as Bill Gates.
I named my dog after him. Gary Kildall deserves so much more recognition for his contributions. Great set of videos, thanks for making them.
Aww you named your dog after him! 😍
The circumstances of Gary's demise is one I will always feel sad about.
Well done sir. I worked in Seattle in 1989, I upgraded from Windows 2.1 to 3.0. I heard the 'Gary went flying' story too, you're the first person to clarify the real events. Gates, Jobs, Ellison, the VC who pushed the Cisco founders out, they are MBAs. Edison and Tesla had their struggles with ruthless business thieves too. 'Keep one hand on your wallet when Gates is around' -Gary Kildall
!!! Tired of how these people proclaim they’re the backbone when everything they have is stolen intellectual content and innovation from people who don’t wanna profit off of everything
Gates isn't an MBA. He studied math and computer science at Harvard before dropping out despite the program he was officially in.
What did Edison have problems with?
Heartbreaking...
I had no idea about Gary, or what he has created, in all computer documentaries I have watch, there was only MS and Apple...incredibly sad and unfair.
Thank you for opening my eyes to the truth, and may Gary's soul rest in peace.
Glad you learned something! If you could, please share this video on your social media. Thank you!
As a longtime fan of Kildall's work, I was shedding a tear by the end of this video series... We all know life is not fair. But seeing the true visionaries like Kildall been sidelined by the corporate types, such as those behind M$ and IBM, will always sting! And it will always leave a bad aftertaste on the mouths of anyone who lived through the birth and evolution of the Personal Computer.
Thank you for such a wonderful retelling of this story, and for helping to set the history record straight! I can only imagine how much research, scripting and editing work it took you to produce this series! A true masterpiece!!!
Gary Kildall was a true visionary. Thank you so much for doing this series it is top notch and everyone into computers or tech should watch it. Keep up the good work.
Thank you 🙏
This man created the first operating system I ever used on a disk I owned. It was an Osborn Z80 machine I bought as a kit including a copy of CP/M in 1983. That was the entry into an IT career now lasting for 40y and still not over.
It included having my own company together with an Gates-like a..hole (fun fact, he looked like Steve Balmer), who tricked me out if the company I originally founded.
But at least I don’t try to flood frustration with alcohol. Life’s just too short to waste it.
It is. There are many poor choices that Gary made in his later years. Alcohol probably was part of many of those. Very sad
Sounds like the same experience I had and just referenced in my comments above. Beware those who have interests like yours but lack your ethics.
Thank you! I’ve had respect for Gary Kildall’s work since the 1980’s and wish things could have turned out better for him in the end. Excellent video!
Aww thank you so much for your kind words and your donation! I really appreciate it! Makes it all kind of worth all the hard work I went into making it!
i m watching this from a Linux Computer. 13 years i m on Linux and i ll never go back. RIP Gary Kildall !
Thank you so much for this series of videos, it has cleared up the history of PCs for me and I have a new appreciation of this forgotten pioneer and his tragic end. He achieved so much in his life and his contribution is immense, Gates' only achievement seems to be the greedy accumulation of wealth by questionable business practices
Thanks so much Paul ☺️
He really needed a good business manager. I don't know what his wife's background was, but he needed someone who could deal with the business and competition stuff. I do not understand why he interacted with Bill Gates ever again. I have had people in my life try to do very bad things to me (i.e. life-threatening). I have nothing to do with them. Gary should never have taken a call from Gates or MS again. When Gary saw that Gates was the keynote speaker, Gary should have gone home. Life it too short to waste on horrible garbage people who want to do harm to you.
I did not realize my two favorite programs from back in the day - GEM and DR DOS were Gary’s work.
Indeed they were.. although I don't think he personally coded DR DOS, and he probably only had architectural responsibility for GEM
They weren't. DR DOS was done in the UK, and to the best of my knowledge (as someone who worked at DRI from 1984-1990), he had no involvement with GEM. Lee Lorezen is probably most responsible for GEM.
That was excellent Al. Such work requires an enormous amount of research and editing. I'm glad you undertook the project and made what is perhaps the definitive presentation of Gary's key moments and the people and events involved.
Lovely comment! Many thanks 🙏👍
Really nice work. Gary Kidall was a visionary, an incredibly skilled engineer, and one of the finest people I've ever known. His ability to see the importance of CD-ROM was prescient.
This should be world wide knowledge. Also learn from the mistakes of others, how just postponing a flight ✈️ and seeing the management and reading the non-disclosure himself would of had taken another course, however; maybe the meeting was just a cordial conversation in order to gain access to Digital Research code. This was exquisite to watch! Gary Kildall was a pioneer and a pivotal part in the revolution of computers/PC. ❤
Awesome video series chronicling the life of Gary Kildall and his Digital Research company. The presentation goes into detail how Gary drove the development of the microcomputer operating system and associated BIOS. Also covered is the most accurate and complete description of how Microsoft co-opted CP/M for its own use, while debunking the contrived 'airplane' account that has been spread around to cover Bill Gates's nefarious activities. The presentation accurately describes how DR's interactions with IBM were far more nuanced than what I could have imagined. In summary, the video series does justice to Gary Kildall, securing his legacy as one of the greatest pioneers of the development of microcomputers, on par with the likes of Apple's Steve Wozniak and Robert Noyce of Intel. Kudos!
Thank you so much! Please share with your friends on social media so the story can spread!
Thanks! Keep up the outstanding work!
4:05 Neat, your GEM Desktop screenshot is from the version shipped by Amstrad with the PC1512.
The Amstrad 1512 and 1640 were awesome machines for their time, and having them ship with GEM with the special hybrid hi-res Amstrad CGA support was kinda the icing on the cake IMO.
So sad. I had a "friend" like that - never the creator, just the stealer and destroyer. Scripture says that the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. How many others that we will never know about have been destroyed by the thief that eventually killed Gary?
That nicely made up woman said that GAK wasn't the only victim of a ruthless man without scruples. IMO Gates and Stalin were cut from similar weaves of cloth.
@curtislowe4577 Wasn't Curtis Loew was the finest picker to ever play the blues?
@@geographicaloddity2 According to Ronnie, yes. I'm from the Lowe branch. I don't know when the split occurred.
Great documentary (entire series). Congrats on a great work! Gary truly deserves a place in "computer industry" history.
Thank you!
great series...thanks for putting this together
Glad you enjoyed it!
A fantastic look at a truly legendary and much under-appreciated man. I wish he was still with us. Thank you for getting a very well researched version of the Intel story out. Excellent work.
Astounding tribute to a true IT hero.
Thank you!
If the rest of your videos are this good, I will look forward to seeing your channel grow and the new stuff you make! Thanks for the clarification of the key events and people that created the microcomputer revolution. I got my start in computing in a small business running CP/M helping my mom and dad run a small high performance auto engine machine shop.
I hope you're subscribed now! I always try to put out high quality stuff, that's why I don't release often. I take my time with research and editing etc. Unfortunately UA-cam prefers fast and often and as a result, my channel never really grows that much, so I'm reliant on people like you sharing it on social media and with friends etc. I've been pumping out similar documentaries on this channel as you may have seen, since 2019.
Perhaps a better title for the series could have been, Who we could have had instead of bill gates.
Thanks for dispelling some of the misinformation surrounding Kildall, CP/M and DRI.
The intelliphone would have been smart phone with a monochrome LCD with Wi-fi and internet.
The Intelliphone likely would have launched in 1995 along with Kildall's completed book and could have easily toppled microsoft.
Would you buy a desktop PC with Win95 or a smartphone.
Just think of how big the first iPhone was in 2007, and then imagine that in 1995.
IBM had a similar product called the IBM Simon which was not successful because the in house software made it to slow.
In 1995 Apple was almost broke and the internet was just about ready to go mainstream. The industry was ripe for disruption.
Kildall could have really turned the tables on microsoft, which is what makes his death all the more suspicious.
Kildall's contributions are truly foundational to the computer we all take for granted today.
That a was Really good documentary series. You should stitch it all together into one long video. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Every time I learn something about CP/M or see it in action I get more respect for it and Kildall. The man is (awe) inspiring as a computer scientist. Something that can not be said about "icons" Gates and Jobs. They are business men first, marketing men second but gave us nothing substantial. Yet they have statues and will probably remembered forever. No so much Kildall and Woznaik. We as a people need to change, not them.
I disagree, Jobs made Apple a Trillion Dollar company and he indeed designed the Iphone. Gates also has his good points as well. I feel sorry for Gary but I am not going to take away from any of these tech giants. I also Respect the works of Richard Stallmen and Linud Torvald as well.
This. This is the type of content I come to youtube for. It is a terrible shame that it comes from small channels that deserve way more recognition than they get. Thank you sir. Thank you for doing what you do and doing it so well. I hope you see the success that you deserve.
Awesome compilation, but it makes me so sad for what happened to Gary Kildall. Gary was a visionary and a true and honest contributor to the development of computer technology, but was undermined and exploited by business opportunists.
Indeed, that's why I wanted to get the 'real' story out there as far as I could tell.
Thank you ! Awesome documentary. Cheers from France
Thank you for posting this series; it was very informative. Around 1992, I started working at the Naval Postgraduate School. One of my supervisors was a woman named Kathy Strutynski. She worked with Gary at both the Naval Postgraduate School and Digital Research, and she had very interesting stories about her experiences with Gary Kildall and Bill Gates.
Oh! Do tell! I'd love to hear them!
Very well done. Great idea breaking it into segments. The "bathroom break" in between was appreciated.!
Thanks! I wasn't sure if this was going to serve me well in terms of UA-cam algorithm, but I think as a viewer, it's what I would prefer. As it was roughly 1.5hrs, splitting into 3 made sense...
Thankyou for this inciteful video series
So nice of you! If appreciate it if you could share it on your social media sites!
Excellent series! Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it! If you would be so kind as to share on social media, especially Reddit or hackernews, I'd be seriously honoured!
@@AlsGeekLab shared on VCFed forum and on AtariAge forum
Thank you for creating this. The larger names in the industry can seem to overshadow true those who can truly inspire and I honestly feel back that I knew nothing about Gary Kildall when I have seemed to have focused on what Hollywood shines the light on as intellectual history. This documentary was insightful and filled with well presented information. My thoughts go out to the Kildall family for the tragic loss of their loved one and I hope that more people will be able to learn how Gary really motivates someone like me to learn and improve at my work today.
Well researched and beautifully delivered 😀👏👏
Thank you!
Well Al... this story really touched me... and teached me many of the obscure parts I never heard before. A giant thanks to you and to Gary Kildall for all its incredbile work.
Thank you for this excellent documentary, DR Dos was my DOS of choice for many years, eventually it was placed into the public domain by Novell.
Ooo I see you have Gary on CC holding a CED (Capacitance Electric Disc). It's the purpleish disc that is in the blue caddy. These things are neat. They aren't optical discs at all. They play back video in a CED player with a 'stylus' that rides over the microscopic bumpy surface of the disc. This forms a varriable capacitance as the disc plays, and this is where the information is recorded. I still have a working player and a few discs. Blue caddy means it's got stereo sound!
Wow! It did seem a bit alien to me! That makes sense now! Thanks for the interesting piece of trivia!
I really enjoyed the documentary. Glad I stumbled upon it.
My take:
The flight aspect of the story seems like an unnecessary distraction. Ultimately, DR and IBM did sit down to try and negotiate an agreement but Kildall wasn't willing to negotiate licensing terms anywhere close to what IBM wanted. Whatever happened in regards to the flight, the outcome would have been the same.
IBM wanted to keep an option with DR on the table so there was some kind of verbal agreement to avoid burning any bridges. IBM obviously had that backup plan in their mind in regards to the alleged ripoff option, and decided it would work best if Microsoft collaborated with them on it. Gates had initially tried to bring DR and IBM together in order to help achieve the aspect of the deal Microsoft wanted, but he was never going to risk his own company in order to help DR when it was made clear to him IBM didn't like what Kildall was proposing.
I believe IBM were the biggest villains in this story at these earlier stages. Microsoft would later go on to play the role of the industry bad guys with utter ruthlessness. In these earlier days though, Microsoft did what was necessary to ultimately take IBM out of the game in a way that I can't imagine Kildall would have done.
We should be cheered by the fact IBM were architects of their own downfall when they decided to go all in with Microsoft.
Excellent series. Also top marks for mentioning James Burke 'Connections' which is still worth a watch today. I saw it as a teenager when it first came out and it really got people thinking. It's what TV should of been used for instead of Valium to placate the masses.
Amazing work. You deserve way more subs. Thank you
I appreciate that! Could I ask you a huge favour? Can you share it on your socials , especially Reddit , hackernews but any ones would be so wonderful. It would really help get these videos out to a wider audience 🙏 thank you!
Thanks so much for this.
I had known about CPM forever, but just this year I started writing a CPM 3 BIOS and really got to know the system.
Oh I wish I had CPM as a kid instead of DOS.
Even before this series, I had the dream that CPM could be the OS of choice for all the modern retro systems, like rc2014 and the like.
And this series has made that even stronger. Let's make CP/M great again, in honor of Gary.
Rest in Peace.
Thanks! I'd sure appreciate it if you could share this video on your social media! Thanks !
Microsoft had Paul Allen and Bill Gates, Apple had Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, but DR did not have a business guy to match up with Gary. He would have benefited from a business partner.
Still, he did good in life and is remembered by us old computer nerds. It's not like he died broke , he did have a pretty good life.
Very informative series!
Great interview footage, too!
I still can't wrap my mind around how the "/" in CP/M is not pronounced ;D
Thank you sooo much for your super thanks! I really appreciate it! It took a lot of research and effort to make the series, so I'm glad that is showing through!
I built my first computer on the kitchen table around an 8080 microprocessor. Found out and implemented Gary Kildall's CPM operating system. You had to write your own device drivers, etc.
Amazing technology at the time. Started a software company years later that paid off our mortgage based on Gary's hard work.
We eventually joined the SPA ( software publishers association) that had it's annual AGM at the hotel Dell Coronado in San Diego.
Bill Gates was the keynote speaker. Sat at a round table with Mitch Kapur and other software notables. I told my wife that one bomb could have taken out the entire USA software industry that night.
Later ended up suing the State of California for software piracy (see BV engineering vs UCLA). That went all the way to the US Supreme Court.
Unfortunately our efforts ended up making Microsoft a lot of extra money. Gates never thanked us.
Amazing story! I'd love to know more! Would.you be willing to come on and do an interview for the channel?
Very well done documentary about computing history at all, but could you slow down that scrolling text so you could actually read it without waiting for narrative to catch up
Amazing video! Great work! I used DR-DOS as a kid on an IBM 286 but I only knew how to run Prince of Persia and how to access the puzzle game in Fox Pro. :D
Great series. I enjoyed "Why and How IBM ended up creating the PC" too. I need to fix and old IBM 5151 monitor too. Subscribed. Thanks for the work. Cheers
My first computer as a kid was one made by “Molecular Computer”. It was a computer that my father’s business had used and then retired. It was massive, and had 3 3ft tall towers. -Each with a huge 5mb hard drive, and a single 8.5inch floppy disk drive. Probably circa mid 1980s or so. It ran MD/M, and supported around 10 terminals. I remember to this day how well it just worked, and I also remember how disappointed I was when we got our first Mac finding out it couldn’t multitask. For an OS of that era, MD/M was incredibly stable, speedy, and useful. It was obviously something designed by someone who had a true gift for software. Microsoft is good at acquiring and copying. Gary was good at innovation, and it’s sad the direction his life took later on. We’d probably be much further along if the /Ms became the defacto standard instead of MS.
Holy Mackrel! That did *not* end how I was expecting it!
- good series
- I was vaguely aware of DR DOS at the time and had heard some of the stories but never the full story before
😵💫
Bedankt
Thank you so much!
Great series, and thanks for clarifying the truth (I already knew most of it as I was around at the time, but others wouldnt).
I was an 8 bit CP/M user in the early 80's (both at work, paid for, and at home on a homebrew system with ripped off copy -- my 'justification' being that those of us enthusiasts who used it like that were actually promoting and evangelising it, especially as most of us ended up influencing our later employers etc and their buying decisions and/or worked in and helped drive and develop the entire PC industry.)
I also actually later worked at Digital Research, in the UK, in 1986-88. Much of the development of Concurrent DOS and Concurrent DOS/386 [later versions of Concurrent CP/M], and of DR-DOS were done in the UK.
I did visit the Monterey head office briefly but unfortunately never met Gary.
Also the story (probably true but I cant verify it) is that Amstrad bought (licenced) DR-DOS as a lever to get MS-DOS at a cheaper price from MIcrosoft (Alan Sugar being an even toughter businessman than Microsoft !)
I used Caldera Open DOS for the workshop server at the computer company I worked for. It served the hard disc images across the network for building the PC's to sell to customers. From memory it included Personal Netware and SpaceWars.
Good lord this is sad. Imagine going to your Alma mater and seeing a drop out's plague. Anybody would lose their marbles.
Yep, some find the insult hard to imagine, but for me, it's easy to figure out. It would be a constant affront.
Greatly appreciate you making this video series. Keep up the good work.
Thank you! Unfortunately I have had some bad feedback recently which is making me question whether I continue this hobby, but I'll hope that individual decides against his curious methods
@@AlsGeekLab There will always be detractors in life, If you believe in what you do you go forward. If it's going to stress you out to much then it is not worth it. Wish you the best in what you decide. 👍
@@skelious thank you. I hope with my videos that the passion for entertaining people through the months of research and editing effort comes through. Unfortunately there are always one or two people that enjoy taking this enjoyment away from everyone else. Very sad.
Excellent research, well delivered, thank you sir!
Thank you!
Yes, much thanks for putting this together, a good thorough doc about this amazing man was long overdue!
Watched the series, subscribed. Please keep the quality up! Love it. I have my DR-DOS disks here, somewhere (ive moved house.... might find them in the next decade).
Thanks, will do! Hopefully you can see some of my other documentaries already on my channel and you'll like them too
Thanks for making this documentary. I learned a ton from it.
Great work there aren't enough words to describe the effort, thanks for sharing with us
Thank you very much! So nice of you to say! Please share this on social media and with your friends if you can!
Gary was a pioneer and a genius, but too nice for the cut-throat world that home computing became. RIP Gary
What a great documentary/series! Gary Kildall was an excellent engineer, a true father of what most of us take for granted today. Unfortunately (as in most cases in life) it's not the great mind and a great heart that wins... It's a shame his work is (mostly) underappreciated...
Thank you for your kind words
Great documentary, Al. I love my Atari ST with TOS OS.
I never said i was good in computers, but know 54 almost,.. i thank Gary,.. for my knowledge 🙏
It's been a long time coming but I've just completed my transition to Linux, because of this stunning video. Thank you.
Al, I've only just watched part I, but came here to comment on part III because it has less (fewer, but who cares) views and therefore the odds of this comment being seen is far greater. You are making a grave mistake, I think. UA-cam likes daily releases, but within reason, and I believe in this case releasing all three parts so soon one after the other is a bit of a shot to your foot. I of course love that I can just watch everything at once, but the algorithm values retention, not only during the video, but also retention of the viewer in the website - and it also values impression conversion/click through rate, so for every 1000 people the algorithm shows the video, how many click it and watch.
I think the way you released these videos fails to maximise those factors. I was completely captured by the narrative, and will stay gripped until I watch all three, but since they are all a bit longer than the usual video, I'll probably leave the website after the third one. Which is bad for you.
Secondly, I was shown part I by the algorithm, and clicked through - but what if it had shown me part III, a later part of a series I don't know? maybe I would have clicked to check the channel and find the first, maybe not. But what I DO know is that the algorithm does not like suggesting "old" videos, or videos that are not the latest from a creator. If there was only Part I the algorithm wouldn't have to choose, that alone could secure more impressions to the first part and maybe increase its click through rate, then when growth had stunted you could release part II, and let it reap the rewards of a more favourable recommendation index (algorithm score), and so on.
It would also give the benefit of making people more curious and excited for the new releases, inducing more people to subscribe, maybe, and giving a (at least) minor boost in viewership to the later parts as they release.
Lastly, as I stated at the very beginning, the algo like frequent releases. From the quality and length of part I (the only one I watched so far) and expecting similar quality from parts II and III, I doubt you made each in a couple of days, which means that for the next couple of days or weeks or months there won't be new submissions. This is "bad" for your rating...
Even if this is your preference, doing it all uninterrupted by releases, you could have at least staggered them, and use the time afforded by the unloading of ready work, to work on the next project or w/e...
But you know, I'm just some guy in the comments.
Imagine if Steve Wozniak and Gary Kildall had worked together at Commodore. No Steve Jobs, no Bill Gates, maybe no Jack Tramiel.
Good series. The earliest days when people could have their own computers were certainly wild. In a way, I miss them, but on the other hand, I'd never go back. It's interesting to speculate what our world would be like today if the corporate money grubbers-IBM & Microsoft-had stayed away, even for a few more years.
Great to know the true story.. 🎉
DR was sued by Apple over similarities between GEM and the Apple Mac. Version 2 of GEM was a significant downgrade to satisfy Apple. Apple never sued Atari so they continued to use and develop the original version
Yes, that was a shame that Apple did that. By rights Apple should have been sued by Xerox!
Has anyone made a video about Borland? Why the competent people disappear and only the crooks survive?
I wish. Borland was much better than Visual Studio 1 and as good as VS 2. Then, they just disappeared.
@@MrRmeadows They didn't disappear. I remember the fierce wars between Visual Basic 6 and Borland Delphi 7 (I think). They fought tooth and nail. But it was Java that killed them.
And Microsoft's alternative to Java, DotNet which kept Visual Basic in the game, which Borland wasn't able to compete.
This time Microsoft was kind of fair (forgetting about the JScript, which was the Microsoft's copy of Java from earlier that went nowhere) , it was after the anti-trust put fear in their hearts, but that was later 2003/2004.
DotNet and Java were clearly better than Borland.
Which I remember was the year I started my career of software developer. And I remember Borland's slow death, I don't know what happened to them, but by 2010 they were done.
And yes, DotNet was a copy of Java, but by the time the Version 2.0 of it came, it was already better than Java because they were ruthlessly in making the thing better, which is how you fairly compete.
Copying things are fine as long as you make them better, don't just copy them, that's stealing. DotNet 2.0 (in 2004) was so ahead that it took 15 years for Java to have the same features, some features would only appear in Java 8 (cof, cof, lambdas).
Also the type system of C# is way better than Java, its theoretically better, the computer science foundation is just better, Java has problems of soundness to this day.
But that's story for another day.
@@monad_tcp The Borland C/C++ compiler did just disappear. I have no experience with Delphi / Basic or other toys.
@@MrRmeadows lol, talk about toys, and then borland C++, that was funny.
Great documentary! There is also a book I can highly recommend to read. It is from a German author named Ralf Kern from 2004. Sorry, I only know the German title "Der Kampf um DOS: IBM, Microsoft und die Geburt des PC". which translates to "The battle over DOS: IBM, Microsoft and the birth of the PC".
This book describes in highly detail how Gates slowly pushed DR DOS out of the market with "questionable" methods.
Anyway... I enjoyed every minute of your series. Thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for the ref to the book
I watched the series and at the end I am amazed to realize that tomorrow it will be 30 years that Gary died.
"Well, it seems to me that he did have an education to get there. It happened to be mine, not his."
Good Lord, that line cuts like a knife... I can not imagine the betrayal and hurt Kidall felt watching this thief on the stage, stealing yet another part of his legacy to the world. To see his rapid decline over the following two years goes to show just how badly this hurt ate at him...
Yes, although he died a rich man, I don't think the money ever mattered to him that much. His one and only passion was taken from him and that's what hurt him the most
Thanks for explaining in simple terms what transpired in the making of the desktop. Writing from Africa where we had no computers then, it is very educative. We are grateful to Gary for the technological innovation and Gates for the business acumen to make it cheap. Without both, we would be at the mercy of the giant IBM.
b.t.w. Software theft, of DOS, was out of control. I worked for a company that only paid for one copy, but sold thousands.
Thanks for fixing the "He was off flying" Bill Gates' fake news.
It was interesting to find out that a BIOS was Kildall's idea.
I worked with MP/M for 4.5 years in my first programming job in the early '80s on an ALTOS computer.
Oooh! How did you give mp/m?
I was using GEM Desktop in the late 80s on my brilliant Amstrad. By the mid 90s I was wondering why Windows was so rubbish on my 486, which seemed to not improve much at all. I could never understand why it took another two decades to get back to the stability and reliability of that GEM desktop I had taken for granted in 1989... Then I learned about Digital Research and finally realised that Windows and GEM were not the same people. Now I dream of a utopian parallel dimension where Gary, and not Bill, is still living... And our computers are a hundred times better at doing everything, including our privacy!
Jimmy Dell: I think you'll find that if what you've done for them is as valuable as you say it is,
if they are indebted to you morally but not legally, my experience is they will give you nothing,
and they will begin to act cruelly toward you.
Joe Ross:
Why?
Jimmy Dell:
To suppress their guilt.
-The Spanish Prisoner (1997)
Great series. I for one loved TOS/GEM on the Atari ST. It was so far ahead of Windows, or the crippled PC version of GEM for that matter. But the ruthless marketing of Gates won in the end with an inferior product. Sad it went that way, but unfortunately that is the world we live in.
Great series of videos. A few years ago I was watching old Computer Chronicles episodes, and Gary mentioned GEM only needed 512k to operate. I have a Compaq Portable II and I'm curious if Open GEM would run on it? I had a version of FreeDOS with had Open GEM installed on it, however I didn't get any of the modules configured properly.
It probably would. It definitely worked on an amststrad 1640 that my friends had (that had 640k)
Wow Gary was even smarter and more visionary than Jobs 🤩 (not to mention that he gave a damn about people unlike the rest)
The biggest challenge and problem for technical geniuses and nerds is not realizing they need to hire a business mind to run the show for them, not their girlfriend or best friend or brother or dad. That’s how so many good ideas died and how we get gizilion linux distros
Thanks for really putting into context Bill Gates behavior. In a way it was a decent gesture to refer IBM over to Digital Research. For their part IBM represented just as much the ruthless behavior that Bill exemplified. Had they come to a fair agreement with Digital then both would have profited and Microsoft would have been a bit player. Maybe they are just as much to blame as Bill for Gary not getting what should have been his.
It makes you wonder if Bill has carried on his slightly devious ways into all the non-profit work he does these days with third world development, disease eradication and all the farmland purchases. It is sad that we don't have Gary as an aging guru like Woz. Truly he was one of the greats.
Sometimes people will take from you what should be yours. The lesson here is you have to let it go and find happiness anyway.
Gary's grave (North Seattle) is not that close to Gate's mansion in Medina.
Brilliant. While I'm very cynical about the beatification that Kildall has undergone (i am very suspect given that so many of Gary's own recollections about the IBM deal are provably false) this is probably the most balanced view I've seen of it.
And don't get me wrong, he was definitely screwed over and I am by no means a Gates fan on any level. But my take is more that he wasn't the man who should be Bill Gates - at the time he *was* Bill Gates and he basically owned the serious microcomputer market. And just like Gates, that lead to complacency and arrogance and a belief his market position was so strong it was unbeatable. That lead to him feeling he didn't have to play ball by IBMs rules because they were now playing in his court - and that mistake cost him dearly when he failed to realise he was against someone (Gates) more devious and ruthless than he was.
I don't think it was arrogance or complacency, it was thinking the market would be smarter. The IBM 5150 did not move the needle much from the Tandy Model III or the average CP/M machine showing the rush job IBM did in designing the 5150. Even the 5170 didn't give the user any advantage over a Tandy Model 16 when came to running Unix. If consumers at the time acted rationally then the IBM PC would have early success then the whole platform would have died off as people saw it was not keeping up with its competition on the Motorola 68k platform.
@@Psy500 the thing is, Gary had already told others that when IBM entered the game he felt there would be a definite split in the market - IBM for business, other computers for the home. Jobs said that Gary was one of the people who warned him IBM was going to sweep the business sector if it released a micro computer and Gary gave answers to that effect in computer magazines. I don't buy that Gary went from presciently noting the power of IBM and it's likely dominance of at least a large part of the market to thinking the 5150 would fail? I think some mythmaking has gone on there. Maybe he did think it would fail but it seems strange. I think it more likely he knew IBM was a big deal, he overplayed his hand without realising it, and by the time he did it was too late. Then we have thirty years of myth making on top of that.
@@medes5597 If IBM was selling a CP/M or Unix machine yhea they had a pretty good machine but even TRS-Dos didn't fully displace CP/M on the TRS-80 as CP/M had the advantage of being easier for multi platform releases. Then you had Dos not even take advantage of the 5170 which is why we had the 640k limit as IBM waited too long to make a standard for memory above 1Meg of address space, this after Tandy got flack for TRS-Dos not taking advantage of the Model 16 (and users having to wait for Unix) but for some reason IBM failings didn't tank the platform.
I think if CP/M (and MP/M) lost to the likes of Amiga Dos, OS-9 or Unix that actually surpassed MP/M in functionality that Gary would not have felt as bad about it but instead it lost to a clone of CP/M that spent the 80s not getting much better.
This is pretty much my view. I certainly can respect the influence and ingenuity of Gary Kildall's offerings in the computer marketplace, but I don't fully buy his version of events either. I'm also sure Bill Gates played to win like he always did, and many times that attitude manifested as cutthroat behavior, but I also don't think Bill's aggressively competitive behavior was akin to thievery or backstabbing.
It would have been nice if Al's Geek Lab had included Bill's statements about Gary's death in this video too, instead of just saying he didn't show up at the funeral. Though I don't think the most die-hard anti-Gates individual would be swayed by Gates' comments on Gary, but if taken at face value, Bill seemed like respected Gary's intelligence, which is probably why he saw fit to label him a threat.
The truth is much like you say, Gary overplayed his hand and Bill saw an opportunity and took it. I mean, if Bill were going to play cutthroat and steal from Gary, why would he have sent IBM to Gary in the first place? With the utmost respect to Gary, I think he didn't want to take responsibility for his hubris and sought to blame others for this failure.
But ultimately Gary's contributions shouldn't be just a footnote in history. Indeed Gary played a critical role in the early development of PCs, and his work with CP/M and optical disks were at least 10 years ahead of the competition (yet another reason for Gates to be fearful). I place Kildall along the likes of Woz and Noyce as the hidden genius behind the advancement of early technology.
@@OzzFan1000 I think IBM over played their yet it didn't bite them in the ass til years later. Large companies on the other side of the Earth like NEC and Sharp had no problems with CP/M's arrangement as they saw it worth also selling to the CP/M market and the 5150 sold like crap as a CP/M machine. The deal with Microsoft also was crap, IBM couldn't get what they wanted out of them which is why they took over for Dos 3.3 then after that split PC-Dos forked from MS-Dos and IBM never could get Microsoft on the same page with OS/2. If IBM just did what everyone else did and went with CP/M till they could get their own OS established then IBM probably could have fended off the clones better.
Thanks, Brilliant. Nearly been involved in industry 40 years on and off. And sadly, business ruins good ideas and wealth isn't a sign of innovation. To Gary's family, your father, husband was what seems a great person, sadly as more often is the case. Let down by those whom he trusted the most. Foresight is a double edged sword, hindsight is there to learn from, but deception negates everything. :) :(
My first computer after my CoCo2 was an Amstrad PC1512DD I received second-hand from my grandfather when I was in fourth or fifth grade. It came with both MS-DOS and DR-DOS, and I used to LOVE GEM Desktop. Little did I know how much history was overflowing with that machine and software in front of me.
The story (probably true but I cant verify it) is that Amstrad bought (licenced) DR-DOS for their new low cost PC1512 as a lever to get MS-DOS at a cheaper price from MIcrosoft (Alan Sugar being an even toughter businessman than Microsoft !)
@@stephencole9289 Alan Sugar is an interesting character himself, for sure!
never liked Bill Gates. always saw him as a brat, having read up on his childhood and watched docus, and it was proven when he rocked back and forth during the Netscape hearing like a little kid that took one too many candy.
I knew there were shenanigans with freedos, qdos etc. I tried to read up on it on wikipedia couple of months ago but was left unsatisfied, because I felt the topic was very poorly covered.
Thanks for this
Thanks for the compliment!
11:04 - you are using my photo of Gary in his Shadow F1 car without permission or attribution.
I'm sorry, I made attribution to everywhere I had a source for as you can see in the credits. I obtained all images from creative commons licenced material, according to google, please provide me your name and any details and I will attribute you in the description. The use of these images is purely to tell the story.
Like many of the commentors I followed the whole saga, I was there back when Bill would pick up the phone in Albuquerque. Then Microsoft binders were Brown not Blue. I made hardware for the ported Bill's paper tapes to Phillips cassette audio that I sold with paper tape and my audio cassette to plug into S100 bus IMSAI and other computers, including MDS-800. I also had one of the original Altairs.
I always wondered if the branding changes were a move from the Eddie Bauer (Seattle based) look to an IBM look? Was the real motivation?
Gary seems like the guy who invented the intermittent windshield wiper for cars. He sued the auto makers for many, many years and died early. Only the, did the automakers settle the case.
oh my god I haaaate Bill Gates. M$ sucks.
There are some similarities with Linus Torvalds. Linus is a way bit more "abrasive" as he stated himself. They both developed an OS out of their own needs. They both share the technical background. They both want(ed) everyone to profit and learn from it. I'd personally would like to take a drink with both of them - not those greedy business guys like Jobs, Gates or Balmer... they gave me creeps at every public presentation in the 90's.
I'm going to switch to Linux and never use MS windows again.
linux mint is great....
In an alternate universe, Gary decided not to go flying and met with the IBM executives.