[GLLUG] software naming

[Michael Rudas (computer)]

Charles Ulrich wrote:
> I'm going to be obnoxious and speculate that the 'dir' command most
> likely came from CP/M, the OS from which DOS was derived. Also,
> Microsoft didn't actually write DOS, they bought it from a company
> called Digital Research for the sole purpose of reselling it to IBM to
> be bundled or sold with the very first PC.
Actually, what Microsoft bought was "Quick-and-Dirty DOS" (QDOS) from a 
company called Seattle Computer Products.

The company had an S-100 bus-compatible processor board, the SCP-86, 
built around the then-new i8086 processor.  They got a lot of calls 
saying, "It's cool, but there's nothing to run on it."  A remedy was 
devised.

It was basically a one-weekend project that directly translated/ported 
the 8080-based CP/M code to that of the 8086.  MS bought QDOS outright 
for $50,000-- not bad for a weekend's work-- then turned around and made 
hundreds of millions of dollars off of it by selling it to IBM and other 
PC-compatible makers.  The original programmer soon sued for 
misrepresentation and won a couple of million dollars-- still not bad 
for a weekend's work, but pocket change to MS, even then.

Digital Research's product for the IBM-PC was CP/M-86, which was never 
fully finished and was shelved to concentrate on the Graphical 
Environment Manager (GEM) which was later translated (loosely) to the 
MC68000, which is how it wound up on the Atari ST-- but that's a whole 
'nuther story, as they say.  The later DR-DOS was more of an MS-DOS 
clone than a true successor to CP/M-86.