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Paterson sues "They Made America" author over Microsoft history Posted by Sufian on 04 Mar 2005 - 04:00
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Tim Paterson, the man usually credited for building the basis upon which Microsoft's landmark computer operating system was created (DOS) has sued an author who alleges the sofware was a "rip-off" of another man's work.
Paterson filed a defamation lawsuit on Monday against Harold Evans and the publishers of his book entitled "They Made America."
The suit is over a chapter in the book about Gary Kildall, the founder of Digital Research. The book claims Paterson's software was a "slapdash clone" and "rip-off" of Kildall's CP/M operating system developed in the 1970s.
Paterson, now retired, developed his software in the late 1970s and early 1980s while working at Seattle Computer Products. Microsoft purchased the technology in the early '80s, using it as the basis for its own MS-DOS, which became the industry standard.
Evans, the former president and publisher of Random House and editorial director and vice chairman of U.S. News & World Report, said that the intent of his writing was to "correct history" on what role Kildall played as a software pioneer. Evans said he planned to "enter a vigorous defense" against Paterson's suit.
There were many simiarlities between the two. My first computer, a Victor 9000, came with both CP/M and DOS v1. There was no documentation for DOS, and because CP/M was "the" operating system for PCs at the time, I began with it.
Later, DOS v2 added subdirectories, which caused me to switch over. (The equivalent in CP/M was really annoying. I forget what it was called, but it divided the diskette in to independent areas; you could switch between them by pressing Ctlr+C -- but that was the same keystroke for exiting most software, so it was a pain.)
I twas easy to switch from CP/M to DOS because:
* DOS was being enhanced with more features; CP/M was not
* DOS command names were near-identical to CP/M command names.
Was one the clone of the other? I suspect it was more of case of DOS building on its predecessor, like Lotus 1-2-3 building on VisiCalc.
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