Dr. Gary A. Kildall
APA Format Sixth Edition
Edward Winters
ITT Tech

Abstract

The article on Gary A. Kildall was a very good read. It tells about a man who owned a

company called Digital Research. In this article it tells a story about the life and death

of Gary who was on the brink of discovering untold amounts of unknown digital

software for the pc (personal computer). The note on page 14 of the Computer Structure and Logics textbook tells about a time that Digital Research refused an offer from IBM ( and that opened the door for a company called Microsoft which, caused Digital Research to lose in the race of software development.

The article on Gary A. Kildall was a very enlightening read. This was a good article because it tells about an intelligent man that created the basis of our pc operating systems today. The software that CP/M / Digital Research created is great and all should know about it Without it we may not have gotten as far as we have with technology today. This article plus the “gray” note on page 14 tells a story about a man who took great interest in his work. When IBM tried to sell him short or give him an offer to work for them he told them that he didn’t like the offer and he turned them down. Well this gave Microsoft a chance to come in and take the deal, but what’s funny about that is Microsoft went and reverse engineered the Digital Research tech and created a copy of it and sold it to IBM. Although at this time no one was charged for any illegal acts (maybe because it was uncommon to be able to do what Microsoft had done). I do feel two different ways about this process, see Microsoft had a genius idea to reverse engineer the software, but at a price of Dr. Kildall’s company Digital Research’s fall .

The article was a bit mysterious too because the way he died seemed very strange. I mean this was a very brilliant man, who was admired by the one’s close to him, but yet he was in a “bar fight” and had gotten a blow to the head which caused his death? I feel like if you were as smart as Dr. Kildall you would leave the scene and the drunken uneducated one would possible stick around. I feel like there could have been some kind of cover-up here, because of all the knowledge Dr. Kildall possessed may not have been in everyone’s best interest! With the ongoing lawsuit involving Digital Research and Microsoft I believe that could have had something to do with it . The world is greatly affected by these two article because on one hand if Microsoft wouldn’t have done the reverse engineering then we may not have the laws against it today. For a world that relies heavily on computers, we should know the origin of them and give credit to the people who spent their lives to develop and upgrade them .

In the end I say that if Dr. Kildall were still alive today he would have made an even bigger impact in software and technology. Dr. Kildall was a brilliant and intelligent man because of his actions and his legacy that he left behind for his family and the world to follow.

“In the end excellence in programming would win in the marketplace”

-Dr. Gary A. Kildall-

GARY A. KILDALL

APA FORMAT SIXTH EDITION