Microsoft’s Road to Power (1) (PCGH-Retro August 21)
Microsoft’s rise to power – this happened on August 21st. Every day, PC Games Hardware dares to take a look back at the young but eventful history of the computer.
…1980: There is still a year to go before IBM launches the first PC. But one of the most important decisions in the development of this computer, which runs under the code name “Project Chess”, was made in these days of 1980: On August 21, IBM representatives met the management of the young Microsoft company to discuss the software equipment of this upcoming microcomputer to negotiate. Bill Gates agrees to supply, among other things, the programming language BASIC. When asked about the popular CP/M operating system, at that time the quasi-standard among platform-independent systems, Gates refers to the software developer Digital Research – contrary to what IBM believes, Microsoft does not offer its own operating systems . Shortly thereafter, Bill Gates arranges a meeting between IBM and Digital Research’s Gary Kildall for the next day, August 22 – a meeting where things will go wrong…
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