From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Date: Fri, 3 May 1996 19:26:38 +0800
To: "Bruce M." <cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: The Joy of Java
Message-ID: <m0uFCmy-0009CTC@pacifier.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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At 04:43 PM 5/2/96 -0500, Bruce M. wrote:
>On Wed, 1 May 1996, Dr. Dimitri Vulis wrote:
>
>> My recollection is that when IBM first started selling IBM PC, they offered
>> a choice of (at least) 3 operating systems right from the start: UCSD p-system,
>> CP/M-86 or PC-DOS.  IBM didn't do anything to prompte PC-DOS over the other
>> two. It won fair and square in the marketplace because the other two were
>> even worse crap. (Later versions of CP/M-86 got much better.)
>
>    I always had been under the impression that they charged a hundred 
>dollars or more for CPM as opposed to DOS which was also a major reason 
>for its popularity.
>Bruce Marshall

The story I heard (about 1983) was that IBM had pulled a rather fast one on Digital Research, the source of CP/M for 8080's and CP/M 86.  They lured DR into an exclusive contract in which they offered to pay a percentage of the sales to DR on CP/M 86 for the IBM PC, but then deliberately offered it at such a high price (about $250 or so) that "nobody" wanted it.  Because the contract was "exclusive" even Digital Research was locked out of the market.  By the time that contract expired the market was firmly in the hands of MSDOS. In effect, DR had sold the entire market for a song.  Had they been more careful it might have been a horse race. 

This was identified as an intentional tactic of IBM, BTW.

Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.comJim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com