From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Aug 25 18:27:22 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id SAA26662 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 18:27:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fallout.campusview.indiana.edu (fallout.campusview.indiana.edu [149.159.1.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA26651 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 18:27:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (jfieber@localhost) by fallout.campusview.indiana.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA18014; Mon, 25 Aug 1997 20:26:58 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 20:26:58 -0500 (EST) From: John Fieber To: Wes Peters - Softweyr LLC cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Since the MicroSloth(tm) jokes have been flowing... In-Reply-To: <199708260025.SAA04804@xmission.xmission.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Mon, 25 Aug 1997, Wes Peters - Softweyr LLC wrote: > > But MS didn't write DOS. It was written by Tim Patterson at > > Seattle Computer Products and MS bought it for $50,000. > > Bzzzt! Wrong answer. MS bought two "licenses to use" for $500.00 > apiece, disassembled it, changed a few strings, reassembled it, > and called this "MS-DOS 1.0". SCP later sued them and recovered > 20 million or so, which certainly caused Microsoft less pain than > developing their own OS would have. Okay, my most handy source is Robert Cringely's book "Accidental Empires" which cites the $50,000 figure. Do you have another, possibly more reputable source? Not that I care what the answer is, but it would be good to know which stories are mere rumor... -john