The computer systems and IT services that we use today have their origins in standards set over four decades ago, with Microsoft Windows, 365 (formerly Office) and the x86/x64 computer design architecture all developed and standardised in the 1980s.
Whilst these standards are effectively unassailable today, were it not for the events of a single day in 1980, the computer world of today could have looked very different indeed.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the standard operating system used by business computers was not made by Microsoft but by Gary Kildall’s Digital Research Inc. (DRI) and their CP/M operating system.
This meant that when IBM, makers of the Personal Computer and one of the biggest names in computing history, wanted to license an operating system, their first choice was CP/M.
What happened that day has been the subject of speculation and mythology ever since, to the point that a 1995 tribute episode of the long-running television show Computer Chronicles goes into detail about this single day and how it affected the rest of his life.
That morning, IBM showed up and Dorothy Kildall, the manager of Digital Research and Gary’s wife, led the initial negotiations whilst Mr Kildall went with Tom Rolander via a small private aeroplane to visit early computer manufacturing pioneer Bill Godbout.
She ultimately refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement, and even though Gary Kildall returned to the meeting in the afternoon and allegedly reached a handshake agreement whilst on a flight to Florida, negotiations fell through and IBM went to Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
It was Mr Gates who told reporters and spread the story that Mr Kildall “went flying” the day of the important meeting, which given that Microsoft and IBM would make billions off of this partnership went down as one of the worst business moves ever made.
However, this was not strictly accurate, and Microsoft’s 86-DOS was similar enough to CP/M to potentially lead to a lawsuit. IBM offered a deal to let CP/M be sold as an option with IBM PC DOS, albeit at six times the price.
This decision cast a dark cloud over Mr Kildall’s life, and whilst he did make a lot of money after developing the early graphical user interface GEM and selling his company, he would become bitter about the entire affair, suffer from alcoholism and died in mysterious circumstances in 1994.