PC pioneer Kildall dies in Monterey
By Rory J. O'Connor
Kildall lost to Gates with IBM
Personal computer giant remembered for deal he didn't make
Personal computer pioneer Gary Kildall, who but for a single
failed business deal might have enjoyed the wealth and fame of
Bill Gates, died Monday night in a Monterey hospital at age
52.
Kildall was admitted late Sunday to the Community Hospital of
the Monterey Peninsula. He died around 9 p.m. Monday, said Jean
Tierney, the hospital's administrative supervisor. She said
the hospital did not know the cause of death.
Kildall apparently was taken to the hospital after suffering a
concussion in a fall, said Thomas Rolander, a longtime friend
and former business associate of Kildall. While an autopsy
report is still incomplete, Rolander said evidence indicates
Kildall suffered a fatal heart attack. It is unclear if the
two conditions were related.
Kildall's career spans the history of the personal computer,
which he was instrumental in popularizing in the 1970s.
"Gary's technical contributions in the beginning days of
microcomputing were order-of-magnitude enhancements to the
capabilities with which we were working," said Jim Warren, a
Woodside consultant who played a key role in early
microcomputing. "The were enhancements both in technical power
and in equitable consumer-oriented pricing and support
practices."
In 1972, Kildall was an associate professor of computer science
at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey and a
consultant for Intel Corp., which the year before had created
the world's first microprocessor chip. Kildall wrote a version
of the PL/I programming language that worked on the chip, the
Intel 4004. A year later, frustrated with the difficulty of
making the 4004 work with disk drives and other computer
components, he wrote the first personal computer operating
system.
A PC Breakthrough
The program, called Control Program for Micro-Computers and
shortened to CP/M, offered hobbyists a way to use their
microcomputers, as they were then called, in the same way as
larger minicomputers and mainframes. Before, the computers were
programmed in laborious ways, like flipping switches on the
front panel of the machines. With CP/M, they could type
instructions on a keyboard, store data on a floppy disk or tape
recorder and view results on a screen or printer.
Digital Research, the company started in 1976 by Kildasll and
his first wife, Dorth McEwen, sold CP/M for $75 each. Kildall,
who disliked business, said in a 1981 interview that he hoped
"just to support my computer habits" with the proceeds.
But the typical minicomputer operating system at the time sold
for at least $10,000, and Intel's own operating system for
microcomputers cost $800. CP/M soon became the standard
operating system for personal computers, which could be bought
for as little as a thousand dollars. By 1981, Kildall was one
of the best known figures in the $2 billion personal computer
business, and his $10 million company had sold 250,000 copies
of CP/M.
Negotiated with IBM
However, Kildall is probably best remembered for being on the
losing end of one of the biggest deals in computer history.
In 1980, IBM contacted Digital Research, hoping to persuatde it
to produce a new version of CP/M for the personal computer IBM
was secretly developing. Kildall didn't think much of IBM"s
chances but met with the company anyway.
"IBM wanted to take the market away from Apple, and they looked
at them and saw that the SoftCard (a CP/M add-in card for the
Apple II) was an important part of it," Kildall said in a 1991
interview.
Negotiations went badly, Rolander said. IBM wanted Digital
Research to sign a non-disclosure agreement but refused to sign
one in return. IBM wanted to pay a flat fee for CP/M, with no
royalties, and change the software's name.
Silicon Valley legend has it that Kildall, a passionate private
pilot, missed a crucial meeting because he decided to go flying
instead. While Kildall did fly that morning, Rolander said, he
attended the afternoon meeting.
IBM decided to hedge its bets. During a visit to tiny
Microsoft Corp., to obtain a version of its BASIC programming
language, IBM inquired if the company also could provide an
operating system.
Microsoft moves in
Even though he didn't have one, Microsoft founder Bill Gates
readily agreed to IBM's request. He bought a CP/M clone called
DOS from Seattle Computer Products, a company run by a friend
of Gates, for $250,000. That program became MS-DOS, proably
the most widely used software in the world, and helped turn
Gates into a billionaire.
Kildall had earlier sued Seattle Computer Products for
copyright infringement. When he confronted IBM with the fact,
IBM responded that it would agree to license CP/M as well -- if
Kildall agreed never to sue. He did, only to discover when the
IBM PC was introduced that the price of DOS was $40, while the
price of CP/M-86 was $200 more.
"It was only through inadequately sharp business hustling that
MS-DOS took the IBM cake when, by rights, CP/M should have done
so," Warren said.
But hard-nosed business was not Kildall's style.
"Basicly I am a gadget-oriented person," Kildall said in 1981.
"I like to work with gadgets, dials and knobs. I'm not a very
competitive person. I'm forced into it."
Kildasll remained active in the industry until his death. He
was Digital Research chairman until 1991, when Novell Inc.
bought the company. He started an early multimedia company in
Monterey in 1985, and later moved to Austin, Texas, to persue
the field. He recently returned to Monterey and spent the last
year and a half writing an unpublished book on the computer
industry called "Computer Connections."
Kildall was born in Seattle on May 19, 1942, and studied
computer science at the University of Washington, eventually
earning a Ph.D. He then took his post at the Naval
Postgraduate School.
Kildall met McEwen while in high school. The two married in
1963 and were divorced 20 years later. Kildall married his
second wife, Karen, in 1986. They were recently divorced.
Kildall is survived by two children; Scott, of San Fransisco,
and Kristin, of Seattle; his mother, Emma; and a sister, Patti
Guberlet, both of Seattle.
Kildall, who was also race car enthusiast who collected and
rebuilt Grand Prix cars, will be cremated after a memorial
service later this week. Details are incomplete.
