Talk:Gary Kildall

message: The only difference between Tim Paterson's CP/M, and Gary Kildall's CP/M was Tim Paterson wrote a patch for Gary Kildall's CPM so it would run on the 8088 chip.  It is open to question whether Tim Paterson had any rights to the patched version of CP/M he wrote for Seattle Computer Products considering the fact he wrote the patch for Seattle Computer Products while he was their salaried employee.  If Gary Kildall did not retain rights to the patched version of his software, then Seattle Computer Products should have owned the rights to it, not Tim Patterson.  
Michael D. Wolok 07:20, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: One can't convert a program to run on a different processor by "writing a patch".  Each processor family has different op codes.  Paterson's O/S was completely new. It simply shared some system call numbers for similar functions with CP/M, to make it easier to convert a CP/M program to QDOS.  The file system for QDOS was completely different, and actually borrowed the FAT concept from Microsoft's 1977 Disk BASIC. So Digital Research never had any connection with, or rights to it. There was also never a question that the rights belonged to SCP, not its employee. An employee's work always belongs to the employer unless it is explicitly addressed by an employment contract, and Paterson did not assert any such rights. --Blainster 15:02, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Did Tim Paterson have any rights to the OS he sold Bill Gates? 

message: This is a very nice article, well-written and seemingly comprehensive. All it needs is a few more citations to be GA quality. There are a few paragraphs without citations, and a couple of direct quotes from Gates and Kildall that need citations immediately after them. I am putting the article on hold to allow this to be dealt with, and will pass it once this is taken care of. MLilburne 18:03, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you'll find that everything is now cited. Kildall's comment about Gates was quoted from his memoir in the Andrews article, which is also the source for the next sentence. Gazpacho 23:12, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for making the changes so promptly. I'm now happy to pass it. MLilburne 11:25, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: GA on hold

message: Is Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia the same as (or related to perhaps?) the "Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia" link that Mugsywwiii added?JimScott 16:29, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  the same? 

message: As for the assertion that Gary had "occasional private outbursts of bitterness" over the Dos issue, it is true he was somewhat bitter, but I would never call these events "outbursts".  The most memoral event in this regard was when we upgraded from windows 3.0 to windows 3.1 on a system running DrDos.  DrDos had the reputation for running windows better than MsDos, due to the integrated memory manager that was superior even to Quarterdeck's QEMM.  In an effort to kill DrDos, Microsoft implemented a fake blue screen that would appear if DrDos was detected.  When this was discovered there was no outburst, as one would expect...  Gary just made some brief comments, and decided the windows test machine (a 16mhz Compaq 386 system) was to be our new file server.  
Regarding the comment "Kildall's interest was primarily in inventing and writing programs that mattered to him, and not in building an industry or a large company", this is silly, as his main focus was building an industry AND a large company based on the Intelliphone.  This effort was what kept him from dwelling on bitterness from the past.
His home in Westlake was not a ranch, and the garage had 6 stalls, not 14.  The garage was to display his collection of famous race cars that he aquired, each having been restored to ready-to-race condition by the original car builders.  While I never saw his Pebble Beach house, it is my understanding that there he kept a collection of Lamborghini Countachs...  THAT garage was large, and may very well have held 14 cars.  He drove around Austin in a Lamborgini LM4, and had a beat-up black Chevy truck for hauling things.  He very briefly owned a Lear Jet, but the fuel consumption was so high that he sold it and purchased a Gulfstream wide-body jet to replace it.
The reason he never sued over MsDos is that there was no legal basis early on, and by the time Lotus invented the look and feel concept, the statute of limitations had run out and the purportedly stolen code was no longer in use...  A number of CP/M clones existed, many having been written by Gary's college students.  Gary told his students that the best way to learn programming is to write your own operating system, and CP/M was the standard his students cloned.  So he wasn't in the habbit of suing over cloned versions of his OS. --Georgedotcom 15:59, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: 23-March-2007: Thank you for your comments.  I have swapped "outbursts" to become "statements" as less POV-slanted.  In general, claims of extreme behavior require multiple sources for Wikipedia: for example, saying he was married at his local church might go unsourced, but saying he exchanged vows sailing in a Caribbean lagoon would need multiple, independent sources.  I will revise and re-source the other issues in the near future.  Thanks, again. -Wikid77 15:22, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments on the main article

message: 23-March-2007:  A Wikipedia "Notes" section contains footnotes, such as defined from ref-tags (xxx).  The footnotes (displayed by "") can cite sources or just explain details as an aside comment.  A Wikipedia "References" section is a bibliography, typically in alphabetical order by name of author or organization.
To condense citation footnotes, reuse the same ref-name with a trailing slash "/" (""), then for books, list all relevant page numbers in the one reused ref-tag (example: J. Doe, ACME Handbook, June 1897, pages 9/16/34-36.).  Read more at: Wikipedia:Guide_to_layout.   -Wikid77 15:01, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  References list 

message: 26-March-2007: Articles on Wikipedia tend to avoid descriptions of a person's private motives.  A statement of motives or priorities would require detailed evidence, particularly written quotations from the person directly, and not just another person's opinion.  Although motives are certainly valuable information, a description of motives is very difficult, due to the high standard of evidence required to define a person's motives.  I am removing the speculative notion that Gary Kildall did not want to lead a large corporation; that notion was based on one guy's opinion, while other information contradicts that notion: the DRI company was originally called "Intergalactic Digital Research" rather than some small hackers, temporary venture.  Also, Gary Kildall's final company, called Prometheus Light and Sound, was developing PBX telephone systems to compete with high cell-phone prices, not the domain of a small operation.  I think any other statements of motives should be backed by direct quotations from Gary Kildall, rather than from hearsay. -Wikid77 00:03, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Motives sources (2007) 

message: The official  Digital Research site states "Gary Kildall passed away following a blow to his head at the Franklin Street Bar & Grill in Monterey, California" Do you think the Death section of the article should be updated from "sustained an injury at a Monterey restaurant" to "sustained a blow to the head at the Franklin Street Bar & Gril in Monterey"?
The site also contains his eulogy however I don't know if it would make sense to link to it. Suggestions please?
64.93.163.34 09:07, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I heard that story too, but it is one of multiple conflicting stories. Nobody knows what happened because Gary didn't remember himself. 67.168.160.218 (talk) 00:08, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cause of Death 

message: Known is that Gary wrote a book shortly before his tragic -but convenient for Microsoft- death about Ballmer and Gates. Where can this book be obtained? From what I read, a family member has the book but is scared for reprecussions by Gates' lawyers. The book should be opened for publication.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.89.247.48 (talk) 11:29, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gary's book 

message: I'm quite surprised that an article on Gary Kildall has no mention of John and Patsy Torode who, with Gary Kildall, started Digital Systems. John Torode designed most of the hardware on which Gary's earlier software ran.
Danensis (talk) 14:58, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: In fact, they might be notable. If you can, please write the Digital Systems (Seattle) (currently only a redirect) and/or John Torode (physicist) articles. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 12:08, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  John Torode 

message: Apologies. I'm not entirely sure what happened, it looks like I accidentally copied a much older version of the page into place. I'll try the edit again later (which is not the one I just did.) --98.254.202.225 (talk) 17:17, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  My first edit today 

message: FTA: IBM lead negotiator Jack Sams insisted that he never met Gary
Verbal agreements are legally binding, so he cannot say anything else really.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.82.82 (talk) 17:27, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jack Sams 

message: http://www.computerhistory.org/_static/atchm/in-his-own-words-gary-kildall/
Part of the confidential book written by Gary is released under a license not allowing to do citation, but it is allowed to link to this distribution page. Only the first chapter is released.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.214.169.69 (talk) 02:03, 5 August 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Now added as an External Link.  This should help improve visibility and accessibility, even though this had already been included in the article as a reference.--Concord gioz (talk) 23:01, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Memoires Released to public under strict individual license 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I was reading this earlier and noticed an edit by user 187.58.157.239 basically saying that Stewart Cheifet was the prime suspect for Kildall's murder. This was completely uncited, and there are no readily accessible sources for the content which said that Cheifet was evasive about his whereabouts, struck a reporter and Kildall and Chiefet didn't get on and would 'set deadly traps' for one another.
If anyone has sources, feel free to add what I removed back in, but I just see borderline libel. 37.60.108.144 (talk) 04:07, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Homicide?