Wow, that's something to think of Arthur C. Clarke banging out the manuscript on that machine. I have to admit, his move to Sri Lanka has always struck me as highly suspicious, though. It's a well known destination for sex tourists hoping to hook up with young boys. Clarke himself was accused of it, but later was officially cleared of the charges. Still gives me the creeps; don't know why anyone would want to live in a "pedophile's paradise." I'd be curious what people here think about it; I'm sure there must be plenty of science fiction readers out there.
Legendary former MOS and Commodore engineer Chuck Peddle gave his VCF East 4.0 talk from Sri Lanka (I posted the audio in an earlier blog post) via video conference. He said Sri Lanka really is like a paradise and I guess it also has the advantage of skilled workers available for cheap. I've seen Clarke himself talk about how wonderful Sri Lanka was. I've never heard the pedophile thing myself, but who knows. I know almost nothing of Clarke's personal life. I know he was staying with a Sri Lankan family for a time. Not sure if that's still a case.
Clarke and the Kaypro story is rather intriguing. I think it was the first time Clarke used a computer for writing. There were many technical hurdles, not the least of which was getting a reliable phone connection for modem use to send data back and forth. Very compelling stuff, though, and I recommend anyone who's interested to track down the official story on the Web. It's worth it.
Matt Barton wrote:
Anyway, about CP/M. I noticed that some folks who grew up with CP/M are adamant about how much MS-DOS sucks compared to it. I've seen all sorts of comments about how CP/M was much easier to use, made more sense, etc., yet I just don't see that myself. To me, MS-DOS is a much easier system, albeit not as user-friendly as the later GUIs. It seems that both CP/M and MS-DOS expected you to sit down with a manual for a fairly lengthy period and work out the commands; it was not designed for the newbie just to plop down and hit the ground running. I still haven't gone beyond the very basics of either system--just getting directories and loading programs is about as far as I've gone. I've heard it's an amazingly powerful system if you know you way around a shell.
I was nearly a DOS expert for a time, self-taught, and can still work my way around it pretty well. I've found that everything I learned in DOS has translated to me being able to work with CP/M without a manual, which I think is indicative of how much syntax was lifted from CP/M (in fact MS-DOS was a port of QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System), which was nothing more than a weak clone of CP/M). Indeed, early DOS was like an immature and slightly buggy version of the mature CP/M, which had gone through several well tested revisions. The fact that CP/M was a type of modular and adaptable operating system, being able to run on just about anything, foreshadowed MS-DOS's eventual usage in a sea of so-called IBM PC compatibles (though some were not in fact IBM compatible and were merely MS-DOS compatible, requiring their own software but still running a version of Microsoft's DOS as their core operating system).
Matt Barton wrote:
It's also a great story about how Kildall almost managed to get IBM to pick up CP/M as its OS of choice for the famous IBM PC. Definitely one of those great "What if?" questions. I think in some ways, the relative popularity of CP/M at the time might actually have proven a hindrance, in that Kildall may have been feeling a sense of security or simply overconfident.
I actually clarified that story greatly and I think definitively in both the CP/M and IBM PC sections of our history book based on Chuck Peddle's retelling and my own review of historical documents and other media (like Cringely's Triumph of the Nerds). I'm not going to get into here as it's in the book, but essentially it was not Kildall who nixed giving IBM CP/M, it was Kildall's lawyer. Kildall wasn't personally involved because he didn't want to tell IBM "no". Essentially IBM needed some contractual changes that the lawyer didn't think should be allowed based on pre-existing contracts Digital Research had in place with other companies (he was afraid they'd have to renegotiate all those other deals). So, temporarily rebuffed, IBM went to Gates who they thought they could get a CP/M license from. Gates instead offered a work-alike, which he had to secretly purchase from somewhere else (QDOS), which became MS-DOS (IBM's version PC-DOS). Of course soon after the launch of the PC in 1981, a version of CP/M was made available, but at a significant premium over MS-DOS (PC-DOS). The war was already lost.
In any case, it would have been indeed interesting if IBM did get CP/M as their default operating system. It was Microsoft's and Gate's brilliant non-exclusive license with IBM that opened up the world to clones through the use of MS-DOS (in conjunction with IBM's own use of off-the-shelf technology, something they tried to unsuccessfully reverse with their later PS/2 systems). It's not a given that Kildall and Digital Research would have been so clever in the manipulation of the non-exclusive licensing. Microsoft obviously was and ended up banking on the type of setup the world eventually came to standardize on (though, of course, if it wasn't, Microsoft had their hands in most computers, so who knows)...
======================================
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director
Armchair Arcade, Inc.
(A PC Magazine Top 100 Website)
======================================
*************************** Bill Loguidice, Managing Director
Armchair Arcade, Inc.
Wow, that's something to think of Arthur C. Clarke banging out the manuscript on that machine. I have to admit, his move to Sri Lanka has always struck me as highly suspicious, though. It's a well known destination for sex tourists hoping to hook up with young boys. Clarke himself was accused of it, but later was officially cleared of the charges. Still gives me the creeps; don't know why anyone would want to live in a "pedophile's paradise." I'd be curious what people here think about it; I'm sure there must be plenty of science fiction readers out there.
Legendary former MOS and Commodore engineer Chuck Peddle gave his VCF East 4.0 talk from Sri Lanka (I posted the audio in an earlier blog post) via video conference. He said Sri Lanka really is like a paradise and I guess it also has the advantage of skilled workers available for cheap. I've seen Clarke himself talk about how wonderful Sri Lanka was. I've never heard the pedophile thing myself, but who knows. I know almost nothing of Clarke's personal life. I know he was staying with a Sri Lankan family for a time. Not sure if that's still a case.
Clarke and the Kaypro story is rather intriguing. I think it was the first time Clarke used a computer for writing. There were many technical hurdles, not the least of which was getting a reliable phone connection for modem use to send data back and forth. Very compelling stuff, though, and I recommend anyone who's interested to track down the official story on the Web. It's worth it.
Anyway, about CP/M. I noticed that some folks who grew up with CP/M are adamant about how much MS-DOS sucks compared to it. I've seen all sorts of comments about how CP/M was much easier to use, made more sense, etc., yet I just don't see that myself. To me, MS-DOS is a much easier system, albeit not as user-friendly as the later GUIs. It seems that both CP/M and MS-DOS expected you to sit down with a manual for a fairly lengthy period and work out the commands; it was not designed for the newbie just to plop down and hit the ground running. I still haven't gone beyond the very basics of either system--just getting directories and loading programs is about as far as I've gone. I've heard it's an amazingly powerful system if you know you way around a shell.
I was nearly a DOS expert for a time, self-taught, and can still work my way around it pretty well. I've found that everything I learned in DOS has translated to me being able to work with CP/M without a manual, which I think is indicative of how much syntax was lifted from CP/M (in fact MS-DOS was a port of QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System), which was nothing more than a weak clone of CP/M). Indeed, early DOS was like an immature and slightly buggy version of the mature CP/M, which had gone through several well tested revisions. The fact that CP/M was a type of modular and adaptable operating system, being able to run on just about anything, foreshadowed MS-DOS's eventual usage in a sea of so-called IBM PC compatibles (though some were not in fact IBM compatible and were merely MS-DOS compatible, requiring their own software but still running a version of Microsoft's DOS as their core operating system).
It's also a great story about how Kildall almost managed to get IBM to pick up CP/M as its OS of choice for the famous IBM PC. Definitely one of those great "What if?" questions. I think in some ways, the relative popularity of CP/M at the time might actually have proven a hindrance, in that Kildall may have been feeling a sense of security or simply overconfident.
I actually clarified that story greatly and I think definitively in both the CP/M and IBM PC sections of our history book based on Chuck Peddle's retelling and my own review of historical documents and other media (like Cringely's Triumph of the Nerds). I'm not going to get into here as it's in the book, but essentially it was not Kildall who nixed giving IBM CP/M, it was Kildall's lawyer. Kildall wasn't personally involved because he didn't want to tell IBM "no". Essentially IBM needed some contractual changes that the lawyer didn't think should be allowed based on pre-existing contracts Digital Research had in place with other companies (he was afraid they'd have to renegotiate all those other deals). So, temporarily rebuffed, IBM went to Gates who they thought they could get a CP/M license from. Gates instead offered a work-alike, which he had to secretly purchase from somewhere else (QDOS), which became MS-DOS (IBM's version PC-DOS). Of course soon after the launch of the PC in 1981, a version of CP/M was made available, but at a significant premium over MS-DOS (PC-DOS). The war was already lost.
In any case, it would have been indeed interesting if IBM did get CP/M as their default operating system. It was Microsoft's and Gate's brilliant non-exclusive license with IBM that opened up the world to clones through the use of MS-DOS (in conjunction with IBM's own use of off-the-shelf technology, something they tried to unsuccessfully reverse with their later PS/2 systems). It's not a given that Kildall and Digital Research would have been so clever in the manipulation of the non-exclusive licensing. Microsoft obviously was and ended up banking on the type of setup the world eventually came to standardize on (though, of course, if it wasn't, Microsoft had their hands in most computers, so who knows)...
======================================
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director
Armchair Arcade, Inc.
(A PC Magazine Top 100 Website)
======================================
***************************
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director
Armchair Arcade, Inc.