#2 is incorrect...the movie is absolutely correct on that fact. Seattle
Computer Products developed QDOS for some product of theirs. The guys name
is Tim Patterson. Gates bought the rights for $50K, renamed it and licensed
to IBM. Little know fact is that SCP retained the right to distributed
MS-DOS at no charge as long as they bundled hardware...amazingly they were
the only ones...SCP (at this point called Patterson Labs) was shipping
MS-DOS with a 8088 chip (hardware) to get around the restriction..this was
sometime in the mid-80's. MSFT bought Patterson Labs thereafter, Tim
Patterson went to work for Phoenix Technologies (BIOS guys) and I don't know
what happened after that. I was buying DOS from Phoenix and remember
reading about in Computer Reseller News.
There is also a hidden story about IBM going to Digital Research and them
shooing them off. From a friend who worked at DRI as a sales guy and knew
Kildall well...he said the story was really bent out of shape. He said the
IBM showed up on the wrong day, Kildall was out flying his plane and was
unreachable. DRI/Mrs. Kildall spent the day on the phone with IBM's lawyers
trying to pound out an acceptable Non-Disclosure. If you any of you have
every dealt with IBM you know that they *rarely* every sign NDAs and their
legal staff is slow. So they left after a day of this. Gary was mad at his
wife..if he was there they would have talked without the NDA. This same
guy...one of the best OEM salesguys you'll ever meet was personally
recruited by Gates to join him around that point. He didn't like
Gates...besides that he was working at DRI, they were the damn king of the
hill! Don't feel bad for my buddy though he went on to make millions at
Phoenix Technologies and SystemSoft, probably not as much as if he went to
work for MSFT.
This story isn't as juicy as the ones in print.
-Chandra
-----Original Message-----
From: CLASSICCMP-owner_at_u.washington.edu
[mailto:CLASSICCMP-owner_at_u.washington.edu]On Behalf Of van burnham
Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 1999 9:49 PM
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
Subject: Re: Pirates...
Hello Max...
Here's a few:
#1 Jobs and Wozniak were actually working at Atari when they designed the
Apple 1 (and was the resource for most of the parts they used), in fact, it
was the revenues from Jobs' project Breakout that financed the trip to India
they mention oh so briefly in the script. Also, Nolan Bushnell, president of
Atari, was offered the opportunity to invest in their start-up first... he
declined, but put them in touch with "Valentine" who introduced them to Mike
Markula in the first place. These facts were completely omitted.
#2 IBM came to Microsoft looking for an operating system for the IBM PC,
not the other way around. Microsoft originally sent IBM to Gary Kildall
(developer of CP/M) who refused to meet with them. IBM returned to Gates
who, in turn, bought the OS from Kildall himself for $50K and then licensed
it back to IBM. These facts were totally inaccurate in the film.
#3 Bill's hair was never that blonde.
xoxo van
>On Tue, 22 Jun 1999, Sellam Ismail wrote:
>>everyone here to know the difference between fact and outright bullshit
>
>Please, list a few specific distortions of facts in the movie (except for
>questions personality which are subjective).
>
>--Max Eskin (max82_at_surfree.com)
> http://scivault.hypermart.net: Ignorance is Impotence - Knowledge is
Power
van burnham +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ van_at_wired.com +++
senior production manager +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
wired magazine ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
520 third street third floor san francisco california 94107
415.276.4979 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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