Re: [cobalt-users] RAQ2 Sendmail & Hotmail

["RH Linux" <rhlinux@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jeff and everyone else

I think this thread should be closed

This is now WAY off topic.

If you see, i posted the orginal question asking two simple questions. If i wanted to know if MS has resold anything of anybodys....I would of asked


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeff Lasman" <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <cobalt-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2000 10:26 AM
Subject: Re: [cobalt-users] RAQ2 Sendmail & Hotmail


"Robert G. Fisher" wrote:

> On Thu, May 04, 2000 at 12:06:13AM +0200, Jens Kristian Søgaard wrote:
> > Remember, Microsoft started out being a company reselling Unix
> > licenses... :-)
> 
> Hee...we're still way off topic, but actually MS started out
> by licensing a port of BASIC to the Altaire.

Yes, I believe it was the MITS Altair (spelling may or may not be
right), and I believe that MITS was located in Albuquerque, which is why
they moved there.

(This is the kind of topic that's more in-place on the Internet Access
List than here, but I really can't resist...)

> They later bought
> what would become 'DOS' from a geek

Tim Patterson.  I've lost track of him but used to know him and bought
DOS from him for many years...

As I recall, he didn't do too badly; he owned the rights to sell
anything in perpetuity, that Microsoft created from his original
design.  And he did, at least through version 3.0, maybe version 3.1.

Then, because too many people were copying his version (sorry, I can't
remember the name of it right now, it might have had the name "Seattle"
in it; I think it did) in Taiwan illegally and he didn't have the
resources to go after them, Microsoft bought up his company, so he got
paid twice.

> who had been playing with
> cp/m style OS for a while

He called it QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System); it was very CP/M
like, but used memory-mapping rather than port I/O, and it was designed
for an early S-100 8080 card, as I recall.

> at a pretty penny after they had
> already licensed (a then non-existent product for them) the OS
> to IBM.

They already had a copy of Tim's process in house, as I recall; they
just hadn't talked to Tim about licensing it.

Of course my memory is probably quite colored by the fact that I was a
good friend of Gary Kildall at the time.  Gary (who created CP/M) died a
few years ago after a bar-brawl <frown>.

Jeff
-- 
Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
nobaloney.net
P. O. Box 52672
Riverside, CA  92517
voice: (909) 787-8589  *  fax: (909) 782-0205

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