Breaking News Hub

Not many know that Microsoft was not IBM's first choice when the latter was looking for a disc operating software. In fact, reportedly Bill Gates himself suggested IBM to approach Gary Kildall of Digital Research, the author of the CP/M operating system.

Kildall who is said to be busy with another customer order, is said to have asked his wife Dorothy Kildall to negotiate with IBM. Kildall not happy with the deal IBM was proposing sent the IBM execs packing.

After this, IBM is said to have approached Bill Gates, who with Paul Allen came up with MS-DOS. Rest is history. Incidentally, MS-DOS was based on Tim Paterson's QDOS (the Quick and Dirty Operating System), which was itself based on CP/M OS. MS-DOS 1.0 was released with IBM PC in 1982.

Later, IBM ended up offering both Microsoft's DOS (for $60) and a version of CP/M ($240) to buyers of the original IBM PC.