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Did Bill Gates Steal the Heart of DOS? article

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xprt

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Interesting article in IEEE Spectrum: http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/did-bill-gates-steal-the-heart-of-dos/1

Written by a vintage computer collector, maybe a member here?

The article is something of an ad for his forensic tools. He tries to determine if DOS was copied from CP/M.

Comparing a program written in PL/M and assembly for an 8080 to one written in assembly for an 8086?? The result is not much of a surprise.

The video very briefly shows a nice vintage collection.
 
Nice, thank you for sharing!

I am curious how he compared CP/M's 8080 source code with QDOS/MS-DOS's 8086 source code :) The mnemonics will be different, register names are different, etc. Also many things might be implemented more efficiently on 8086 (given 16-bit support, more registers, and richer instruction set). He talks a lot about identifiers, but every CS101 student learns to change labels when copying someone's code :)

By the way there are some (technically very interesting) articles on Tim Paterson's (the author of QDOS) sites:
http://www.patersontech.com/dos/articles.aspx
http://dosmandrivel.blogspot.com/

My $0.02:
- CP/M is not that complicated system, so given some programming skills and the knowledge of its API, it won't be too difficult to build a compatible OS (which was done a few times, see this for example: http://www.seasip.demon.co.uk/Cpm/files.html).
- Regarding why not CP/M on IBM PC debate: I guess Gary Kildall didn't (and couldn't) realize the success and historical impact that IBM PC will have, it was just another (one of the hundreds at that time) attempt to create a microcomputer, and he just wanted to get what he believed was the fair price for his software.
 
Hm. Have to read that more thoroughly later but at a glance it doesn't look like anything practical. He jumped on the word jnz which is just an assembly command and the fact that they both had com in them or comerr which I don't think means much. Both operating systems run com files and would naturally have similar functions based on the hardware.

Interestingly some of the museums and major collectors do get called on for legal patent disputes. Sellam (vintage.org) gets those from time to time and I've heard other folks have helped out as well with the research. I would think they, CHM or MARCH might have interesting details if this was investigated by them at all.
 
xprt said:
Interesting article in IEEE Spectrum: http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/did-bill-gates-steal-the-heart-of-dos/1

Written by a vintage computer collector, maybe a member here?

The article is something of an ad for his forensic tools. He tries to determine if DOS was copied from CP/M.

Comparing a program written in PL/M and assembly for an 8080 to one written in assembly for an 8086?? The result is not much of a surprise.

The video very briefly shows a nice vintage collection.
Click to expand...


Microsoft has a long and continuing history of taking/stealing other companies work, and incorporating it into Microsoft products. Typically they approach companies with interesting code, and ask for copies of the source to review saying that they were interested in licensing the code. Then take the source that they gain access to, incorporate it into their own product, then go back the the Owner of the code, and break off talks, saying that they changed their minds.

Microsoft did not write MBasic or MSDOS. MSDOS came from a company in Colorado (or was that Washington?) that ported CPM-80 to 16-bits in order to have a 16-bit operating system to sell with an early S-100 8086 (might have been an 8088) processor board that they developed, and were getting ready to market. In this case Microsoft did not steal MSDOS directly, they licensed it for use on the IBM PC from the company who ported it from DRI (stole the code) without permission. I don't remember the name of the company who developed the S-100 board, as that was long ago, but it would be easy enough to look it up. Years later I bought and traded (wholesale) S-100 products with this company. Ultimately the company had a disasterous fire that put them out of business, although the lawsuit lasted for years afterward before it's conclusion.

Early versions of the illegally ported 16-bit operating system, and MSDOS actually contain the DRI copyright text from the original CPM-80 code.

That company that licensed Microsoft to use the code as MSDOS on the 8088 processor later sucessfully sued Microsoft for selling MSDOS for use on processors other than the 8088, claiming that Microsoft's limited license to use the code as MSDOS on 8088 processor based computers did not allow Microsoft to market MSDOS for use on 8086, 80286, 80386, etc... based computers.
 
Interesting that the icon they use for their CodeGrid application is the same one used by fatesoft's Code Visual to Flowchart. I wonder if their app can tell who stole from whom?

Kipp
 
MicrocomputerSolutions said:
Microsoft has a long and continuing history of taking/stealing other companies work, and incorporating it into Microsoft products. Typically they approach companies with interesting code, and ask for copies of the source to review saying that they were interested in licensing the code. Then take the source that they gain access to, incorporate it into their own product, then go back the the Owner of the code, and break off talks, saying that they changed their minds.

Microsoft did not write MBasic or MSDOS. MSDOS came from a company in Colorado (or was that Washington?) that ported CPM-80 to 16-bits in order to have a 16-bit operating system to sell with an early S-100 8086 (might have been an 8088) processor board that they developed, and were getting ready to market. In this case Microsoft did not steal MSDOS directly, they licensed it for use on the IBM PC from the company who ported it from DRI (stole the code) without permission. I don't remember the name of the company who developed the S-100 board, as that was long ago, but it would be easy enough to look it up. Years later I bought and traded (wholesale) S-100 products with this company. Ultimately the company had a disasterous fire that put them out of business, although the lawsuit lasted for years afterward before it's conclusion.

Early versions of the illegally ported 16-bit operating system, and MSDOS actually contain the DRI copyright text from the original CPM-80 code.

That company that licensed Microsoft to use the code as MSDOS on the 8088 processor later sucessfully sued Microsoft for selling MSDOS for use on processors other than the 8088, claiming that Microsoft's limited license to use the code as MSDOS on 8088 processor based computers did not allow Microsoft to market MSDOS for use on 8086, 80286, 80386, etc... based computers.
Click to expand...

Where exactly is this alleged DRI copyright text in any version of MS-DOS or preceding SCP releases? The author of the linked article couldn't find any nor has anyone else been able to find any clear identifying marks in the past 30 years. Doesn't mean there isn't one or that it was illegal if there was a DRI copyright notice; the rather famous Logitech use of "Copyright Microsoft" in mouse drivers was legal since software was looking for the specific text string.

All the other CP/M workalikes were regarded as perfectly legal despite being less extreme departures from CP/M than 86-DOS/MS-DOS/PC-DOS. DOS dropped functions, changed file systems, and reorganized code layout; all tasks that require much more work than simply porting code.
 
MicrocomputerSolutions said:
Microsoft has a long and continuing history of taking/stealing other companies work, and incorporating it into Microsoft products.

Microsoft did not write MBasic or MSDOS. MSDOS came from a company in Colorado (or was that Washington?)
Click to expand...

You should have read the article mentioned above, as it contains some bits of MS-DOS history. It also mentions that analysis didn't show any significant similarities between CP/M, and QDOS (the original MS-DOS was based on), not even copyright strings.

Yes, Microsoft likes to adopt (and often improve) others' ideas, but I doubt they actually have stolen any code (it would be too much of legal trouble). They certainly used some BSD-licensed code (in TCP/IP stack and utilities for example), but BSD license allows doing that.
- MBASIC - any references to confirm your claim? Who is the original author?
- MS-DOS - yes, it was based on QDOS, but Microsoft did acquire a license for it. Moreover MS-DOS 2.0 was significantly modified by Microsoft, so I think very little of the original code left in use (it was present for compatibility reasons, but since MS-DOS 2.0 most of programs used UNIX-like file descriptor based I/O instead of older CP/M like FCB based file access)
 
sergey said:
- MS-DOS - yes, it was based on QDOS, but Microsoft did acquire a license for it. Moreover MS-DOS 2.0 was significantly modified by Microsoft, so I think very little of the original code left in use (it was present for compatibility reasons, but since MS-DOS 2.0 most of programs used UNIX-like file descriptor based I/O instead of older CP/M like FCB based file access)
Click to expand...

From what I've read, version 1.1 was the last one DOS written by Tim Paterson, based on the original Seattle Computer Products 86-DOS and version 2.0 was a major rewrite. However, I'm pretty sure that Patterson worked for Microsoft on version 2. I don't have the time to find the source of that info right now, but it's probably on Paterson's site.
 
Paul Allen's book goes into very interesting details about how the Basic for the Altair was created. Unless every word of that chapter is a lie then Allen, BG, and the third guy (his name escapes me at the moment), can truly claim 100% ownership of that code. Even if they started out with something rudimentary from somewhere else, which isn't impossible. I've seen it claimed elsewhere that BG just took an existing Basic from where he was working, and modified it for the Altair on company time then left with it. That's definitely not true, he wasn't employed when Altair Basic was written.
I may be wrong, but I always thought what came to be called MBasic started as just this Altair Basic.

-Tor
 
Unknown_K said:
Microsoft stole the code for software drive compression that came with DOS 6.2.
Click to expand...

Err, no. The code was not stolen; when Stac and Microsoft couldn't agree to license terms, Microsoft licensed a competing vendor's compression software. Stac sued on patents being violated and won because the patent MS was using was declared to have been covered by the earlier Stac patent. The jury would not have declared non-willful infringement if MS simply copied Stac's code.

A similar event happened with Real (as in RealPlayer) who wanted Microsoft to use their player and complained when MS instead upgraded Media Player from API demo to actually useful software. The version of the story I heard was that Real wanted a higher royalty than MS was getting from OEMs for Windows itself.
 
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sergey said:
- MBASIC - any references to confirm your claim? Who is the original author?
Click to expand...

I'd be very surprised if MBASIC wasn't at least based on Gates' work! ISTR that he wrote Microsoft BASIC for the MITS Altair. I think there's still a paper tape of it for sale in the Marketplace. (It was also supplied on audo cassette). It was widely copied, to the extent that BillG wrote a letter to one of the magazines decrying the theft.

All in all, the article and the comments (but for one or two--I'll leave you to guess) shows an incredible amount of ignorance. As to Dorothy, well, having had a confrontation with her, I find that the IBM suits being turned away was quite believable.

It was not in Gary's character to sue, although some of his friends urged him to.
 
A long, long time ago (back in the 80s) a very talented DRI programmer showed me where in a copy of MSDOS the DRI copyright, and actual DRI serial number of the program that was incorporated into MSDOS resided.

To this day, I don't know where to find it on a early copy of MSDOS or where to even look for it. Heck, I still don't know how to find the serial number embedded in CPM 2.2, though more than one person has shown me how and where they can be found.

The same programmer showed me a DRI developed icon based GUI running on a CPM68K S-100 based system, years before Microsoft started selling Windows. I may still have copies of that OS in the closet somewhere.

So, while I don't personally have the tools/skills to be able to show you where the DRI copyright and serial number are in a copy of MSDOS 1.0, they are there, I've seen them, and I'm convinced.
 
MicrocomputerSolutions said:
. . . So, while I don't personally have the tools/skills to be able to show you where the DRI copyright and serial number are in a copy of MSDOS 1.0, they are there, I've seen them, and I'm convinced.
Click to expand...

I assume you're talking about Digital Research Inc.

What tools did you have in mind? You can just look at it and do a search for words. I'm not going to bother this minute, but you can check out the work of somebody who has spent some time doing that. Do you see "DRI" mentioned anywhere?

A Forensic examination of the IBM® Personal Computer™ DOS Version 1.00 (1981) Diskette
 
Ole Juul said:
From what I've read, version 1.1 was the last one DOS written by Tim Paterson, based on the original Seattle Computer Products 86-DOS and version 2.0 was a major rewrite. However, I'm pretty sure that Patterson worked for Microsoft on version 2. I don't have the time to find the source of that info right now, but it's probably on Paterson's site.
Click to expand...

Tim Paterson states "I was not involved in the MS-DOS 2.0 project" here.
 
pearce_jj said:
Tim Paterson states "I was not involved in the MS-DOS 2.0 project" here.
Click to expand...
Indeed he does. I guess I was wrong. :)

I don't know why I thought that. I just checked Wikipedia and he already left MS in April of 82. However, he did work quite a few years for Microsoft on future occasions.

PS: Some readers of this thread might like to read what Tim Paterson writes on his blog about The Contributions of CP/M.
 
Caluser2000 said:
Seems the origins of Basic go back to 1964 and placed into the public domain.
Click to expand...
BASIC the language yes, but the various interpreters (and later, compilers) were not - most of them were written much later and the various authors of those can rightly claim ownership of their work.

(The first BASIC I used was on the school minicomputer.. well, maybe 'mini' isn't the right name, anyway it was a 19" rack system with core memory and BASIC on paper tape. Probably around 1977-78. Ah, memories.. well, I learned the limits of the language early at least and spent the next years trying to find better languages and better methods than flowcharts. At the same time I used an AIM-65 but I don't remember if I ever used BASIC on it - it was mostly assembler)

-Tor
 
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Tor, your earlier statement is correct. Microsoft BASIC did start as Altair BASIC, which Microsoft had written and maintained the rights to.

And do remember, even if Seattle Computer Products DID take some CP/M code, Digital Research did have their change with the IBM PC. We all know that story... :)
 
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