Re: the Bill is overdue (off topic)

["John S. Denker" <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>]

Chris Horton wrote:
> As I got it from "The Hackers", IBM approached Gates with a request that he
> provide an operating system for the PC.  Gates declined the first time and
> had to be prodded.

I don't recall reading that in _Hackers_ or anywhere else.
(I conjecture that might be a conflation of the Gates role
and the Kildall role.)

As the story is usually told:
 -- IBM wanted to buy an OS.
 -- Gates was eager to sell an OS to IBM ... even though
    he didn't have one to sell!

Specifically, according to
  http://wesley.stanford.edu/computer_history/DEAL.HTM
quoting Mr. Bill himself,
        "there was about a 48-hour period after [Steve]
        Ballmer and I had officially offered to license
        QDOS to IBM that we didn't really own it. Paul
        hadn't yet closed the deal with Seattle Computer,
        and I was really giving him a really hard time".
which makes it sound like He was doing the prodding, not
being prodded.

See also
  http://www.motherjones.com/news_wire/ms_win98.html
  http://www.patersontech.com/Dos/Softalk/Softalk.html
  http://www.pbs.org/nerds/part2.html

> BTW we should consider the possibility that things might have gone worse for
> the consumers if IBM had not carelessly given away the high ground in the PC
> industry.  IBM was one stodgy, arrogant company in those days.

True.  That's the stuff nightmares are made of!