tim paterson was the programmer of 86-dos, the basis of the ms-dos operating system.
tim paterson was the programmer of 86-dos, the basis of the ms-dos operating system.
who was the programmer of 86-dos, the basis of the ms-dos operating system?
tim paterson
dos (disk operating system) was the operating system that brought the company its real success. ibm first approached microsoft about its upcoming ibm personal computer (ibm pc) in july 1980. on august 12, 1981, after negotiations with digital research failed, ibm awarded a contract to microsoft to provide a version of the cp/m operating system, which was set to be used in the ibm pc. for this deal, microsoft purchased a cp/m clone called 86-dos from tim paterson of seattle computer products for less than us$100,000, which ibm renamed to ibm pc dos. the original cp/m was made by gary kildall of digital research, inc. microsoft did not have an operating system when they closed the deal with ibm and ibm had not done their homework. due to potential copyright infringement problems with cp/m, ibm marketed both cp/m and pc dos for us$240 and us$40, respectively, with pc dos eventually becoming the standard because of its lower price. 35 of the company's 100 employees worked on the ibm project for more than a year. when the ibm pc debuted, microsoft was the only company that offered operating system, programming language, and application software for the new computer. the ibm pc dos is also known as ms-dos.
history of microsoft
microsoft, having worked with scp before and seeking an operating system they could modify for the ibm pc, bought the rights to market the 86-dos operating system to other manufacturers for $25,000 that same month. on july 27, 1981, just prior to the august 12 pc launch, microsoft bought the full rights to the operating system for an additional $50,000, giving scp a perpetual royalty-free license to sell 86-dos (including updated versions) with its computer hardware. realizing that microsoft was making significant profit on the 86-dos operating system, scp attempted to sell it along with a stand-alone inexpensive cpu (without any other circuitry). this was allowed as per scp's license with microsoft, which let scp sell the operating system with their 8086-based computers; this operating system was marketed as "seattle dos", and a cpu was included in the box it shipped in.
seattle computer products