#38: the creator of DOS

[@XAirForcedotcom]

What I really love about this is the fact that Tim has a bunch of projects going on in the background. He has not stopped yet.

[@XAirForcedotcom]

Yo Pinball Wizard. I’ve never seen anyone with a recliner, sitting next to their pinball machine and then at workbench on each side. : )

[@XAirForcedotcom]

In my mind, all of you are older, but in fact, you are that much older than I am. You were just smart, young, and hungry, and happen to be in the right place at the right time.

[@morrillkevin]

I worked way back with an OG Microsoft guy that knew Tim and worked on building battle bots back in the day that was on the TV. I remember thinking it was awesome he was paired up with Tim on it.

[@hxtr-ii2xv]

It made me look around my own desks and room realizing all the projects I have going on that keep me going and entertained. I have so many projects I want to do I'll die before completing them... the way I want it.

[@XAirForcedotcom]

@ you don’t die anyway, but instead, you transition from one state to the next because you have always been here and will always be here as a part of a living universe. Every time you eat something or drink water, it will contain atoms from part of what has lived here in the past because much of it is recycled from other living things that used to be here organized in a different form

[@PablumMcDump]

Audio quality is seriously impacting the listenability.

[@pyhead9916]

So true! If you can't get your sound right, don't bother trying to be a podcaster!

[@WardCo]

All this tech and knowledge and Patterson is a superstar -- so important to record this history -- and they can't get good sound.

[@stupossibleify]

Ok, so the audio isn't great, but it's still discernable. This is a great interview, regardless.

[@matthewnisbett4058]

adds to the MS-DOS vibe

[@bobfunk5055]

Unlistenable, such a waste.

[@JB-qt3wo]

This guy created so many memories for me. My childhood was MS-DOS. Thank you sir.

[@channelclosednow]

MS-DOS was effectively CP/M, written by Gary Kildall.

[@channelclosednow]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/e4vXdZJqeLykn7c

[@yacuza420]

Great video, one of those rare ones where the audio of the interviewee is better than the interviewer :)

[@c016smith52]

Great moment in time to capture all of these interviews! What a time to be alive still and provide a more detailed history of PC era, which fundamentally changed the world. And hey, in the future, probably this source material will aid with persona/knowledge avatars! Will be cool for some kid doing an elementary school research paper to do a LMNotebook interview with one of these guys. :) Having these quality detailed conversations with early days pioneers like yourself and these guys - people that were there and made significant contributions to history, is really valuable for the world to have. It is really great that you're capturing this, Robert. Thanks for sharing it with the world!

[@KirkEBarrett]

The interviewers make me cry. Lordy. Brilliant man to listen to and white haired dude rambles

[@CarlosPCmx]

Yeah. Bad sound and bad interviewers that had no idea of the historical context. Get a microphone dudes! Read a book!

[@ryanmccain1158]

super interesting. thank you for sharing this. My original BBS's ran on DOS.

[@Colidace]

when I switched from AMIGA to PC DOS it was like I went back in time 10 years :P

[@NickSBailey]

lol I held off as long as I could until after windows was mature, but it was still DOS for games and making music it was the only way to get rock solid timing as I was used to on the Amiga and ST

[@matthiasmartin1975]

Amazing that the QDOS guy is still alive and willing to talk to people. But what's up with the subterranean audio quality?

[@jason.arthur.taylor]

Wow. So many historical miscontruations have been put to rest in this video. Thank you.

[@foofromthe6]

Amazing content and cleared up a lot of folk-lore I've heard throughout my training!

[@driesanalog4187]

21:36 content ?? . This might be the nerdiest vid on the web. Thank you Tim!

[@rubenmelias3073]

Hello I am in Argentina. thank for video...

[@pyhead9916]

Gary Kildall was not present, but his wife was at the office. His wife refused to sign the Non-disclosure agreement and IBM got tired of waiting, so they left the office. They called Bill and explained the situation and Bill said, "We will sell you an OS!" Windows NT was a complete rewrite of the OS by Dave Cutler and based on DEC VAX OS. Also based on full 32-bit architecture. No MSDOS system was fully 32-bit!

[@WardCo]

Apocryphal, but I know from the late Phil Nelson, who was in the room, that's not entirely accurate.

[@hgerwnxitnsh]

​@@WardCoCould you please elaborate more on this?

[@phill6859]

​@@ViklasSvenskewhatever the truth, gary over valued cpm and wanted to sell it for too much money. The 8086 had been out for several years and he had ignored it , because everyone could just wait for him.

[@jason.arthur.taylor]

@@WardCo Do elaborate. Please.

[@magnum333]

@@WardCo If it is wrong, tell us what is wrong.

[@hxtr-ii2xv]

23:27 "What was the most challenging Party" - The video became very interesting at this part. I have always wondered how they came up with disk data placement. Looking forward to finishing listing to his answer.

[@hxtr-ii2xv]

64MBs hahahahahahahahaha That was funny.

[@ewinggraphics3384]

This is so cool! Thank you!

[@RuedigerDrischel]

A rare document of contemporary tech history.

[@coreysilva558]

Legendary

[@ianhanschen]

This is great!

[@chyldstudios]

So cool!

[@tschak909]

End users did NOT buy CP/M from Digital Research. DRI sold to hardware manufacturers. The only copy of CP/M that you could BUY from Digital Research directly was the distribution format, tailored for a specific development machine. For CP/M-80 this was the Intel MDS-800 (a re-badged Intellec 8/Mod 80 with single density disk controller and a minimum of 20K of memory.), and the manual contained listings for a skeletal CBIOS that you would adapt for your target machine, and a pair of GETSYS/PUTSYS routines to write it to disk that you needed to adapt to your particular disk controller.

[@Akemi2_1]

Brothers. Audio interface. Shure microphones. XLR cables. Why does the guest have better audio than the hosts lol.

[@nativesun7661]

Can we donate microphones? Cause these conversations are important and as has been mentioned the listenability is severely affected by the poor audio quality.

[@milfordjohnson2289]

why do people say he was dumb... he couldnt possibly have foreseen what bill gates was envisioning. show some effing respect for the forefather of the PC!

[@munocat]

you would of thought, with this rare opportunity they would of used their tech skills to make a better video

[@GoatBarn]

...or collaborated with people that could have...

[@vetsen]

The Host's audio is almost unintelligible. The conversation is somewhat interesting. The audio is probably the most important thing when communicating.

[@hxtr-ii2xv]

29:44 we all did do it and here's an example. We were doing a Lotus CCMail conversation to Novell GroupWise but there was no interface between CCMail and GroupWise by Novell. There was a connector between CCMail and Exchange by Microsoft and then another connector for Exchange and GroupWise by Novell. So to complete this Email conversation we used a connector between CCMail to Exchange then another connector for GroupWise and Exchange because you use any tool to do the job and everything was legal. Wish I had at the mad skills and intelligence like Tim Paterson has who could've built a connector/interface because that would've made me a computer god.

[@sethmaynard2972]

Why is the a video released in 2025 with audio quality of 2003?

[@qtube2007]

good video. thanks.

[@phill6859]

Windows NT also implements the MSDOS API

[@tschak909]

I made a video deep-diving into 86-DOS version 0.11, which came with an assembler, a Z80 to 8086 translator, and a text editor (EDLIN), showing how CP/M code could be ported and run on 86-DOS itself. I DELIBERATELY go over the points he's talking about at the 28 minute mark! kzbin.info/www/bejne/kJWahWibqq53Z6c

[@magnum333]

RIP Gary Kildall

[@barebow40401]

The title should have been "the creator of Quick and Dirty DOS" as there are many "DOS" versions. It was initially referred to as QDOS by Seattle Computer Products (SCP). Digital Research had their own modified CP/M version called DR-DOS to claw back market share that was stolen from them. DR-DOS was always better than the MS-DOS equivalent. Microsoft always had to catch up with DR-DOS. Sad part of history where Digital Research were deceived by IBM. Microsoft grew their market dominance from using a clone of CP/M. RIP to Gary Kildall who was the real Genius. If there was no CP/M then Tim Paterson would not have created QDOS.

[@yacuza420]

Yup, and in fact Tim states this in the video

[@barebow40401]

@@yacuza420 They need to update the title to reflect this.

[@barebow40401]

@@ViklasSvenske Just duplicated. Imagine if someone duplicated the latest version of MS Windows. Digital Research got screwed over by MS and IBM.

[@channelclosednow]

Gary Kildall was the real father of the personal computer operating system.

[@milfordjohnson2289]

what took you so long :) the 4004 and the 8080 were out ages ago.. hehehehe nice to see the legend behind my worst childhood nightmare! 🤩☺

[@bigwave_dave8468]

Ugg..I think Lattice C was the first commercial with a large-linker model..Program Segment Prefix ...aaaaahhhhggggggg!!!! meanwhile Moto 68xx*: hold my beer.

[@brucetungsten5714]

THX

[@djangosoftwaredeveloper]

Man i wish i was around people that could hire me im just a nerd coding in the middle of nowhere 😭😞😢

[@georgeageorgopoulos]

DOS was one of the Best OS EVER!!!

[@barebow40401]

Especially DR-DOS :)

[@normbograham3]

which DOS? PC-DOS, IBM-DOS, DR-DOS, DOS3.1, FREEDOS?

[@gibrains]

Real Pinball tables: Legit microsoft developer.

[@charliedoyle7824]

Terrible audio and lighting. Aren't you guys supposed to be high-tech wizards?

[@user-yr1uq1qe6y]

All of us in that generation that could figure out audio went the rock band route instead of the electronics garage company route.

[@milfordjohnson2289]

for real youre the seattle guy!! wwow i have to watch this. does bill gates ever drop in with like a 6 pack or a bottle of wine or something? :D

[@Rockyzach88]

Tech Boomers and audio setups just don't go together I guess.

[@suchoudh]

❤

[@spartanboxing1]

Bill Gates luggable computer IBM compatible clone was built by a 10-year-old after Steve Wozniak couldn't in 1980. David, the son of an IBM specialist, assembled the "Luggable" computer in 1980. The microserver was never activated on Bill Gates' luggable computer for the 1981 IBM sophwaer contract. David assembled the luggable while visiting a computer store off Atlantic Ave in Bixby Knolls California to load up the latest computer games. The building is now an autistic center, and the property has always been owned by Warren Buffet.

[@KirkEBarrett]

This white haired dude - he needs to never do another podcast. The other two men are amazing. No clue, no research, endless yammering about nothing. It’s infuriating to listen to that guy. He has no idea how to listen or engage. I wish he had facts and ability to listen. “I heard it, I heard it”.

[@tibbydudeza]

Who was JZ - he put his name in the header of all .EXE files.

[@YarisTex]

Not JZ, you mean MZ. Mark Zbikowski

[@tibbydudeza]

@@YarisTex Yes MZ :)

[@GerbenWijnja]

I'm glad TIm has a better mic than you guys do.

[@resle]

you know

[@pyhead9916]

Sorry, but your story about IBM only wanting to pay $25 per OS is wrong. Also, a CP/M license didn't cost $2,000. You cannot trust anything you heard from Digital Research, Inc.team. Only Gary dealt with IBM, no one else. He told the DR team stories that were not true.

[@misterspock1]

In 1979 the CP/M OS cost $145, that same year, buying the BASIC programming language interpreter from Microsoft cost $300. (Byte Magazine). $145 in 1979 is over $650 in 2024 money. PC-Magazine from Feb. 1983 Reported that MS-DOS cost the customer $40 on the x86 and CP/M 86 cost $240, shortly after that time the price was dropped to $60.

[@normbograham3]

I got a preview of a windows system, before MS Windows came out. They wanted to charge $1,000 a copy. I believe they called it Menuette. Today, no one would know it existed, because no one was going to pay $1,000 a copy. Microsoft will never admit, they were late to the game, and it's a piece of history, I notice keeps getting rewritten.

[@radnfo]

Deskmate was real (mode)

[@georgeageorgopoulos]

All programming Languages (big or small) worked with DOS better,,,With Windows you had to buy a big language from MS! ;))

[@channelclosednow]

The original and the best: kzbin.info/www/bejne/e4vXdZJqeLykn7c

[@MMarc64x]

The founding father of Microsoft. Not the 2 Bill...