Chapter 1 - The Darkest Day in Computing History

So many major blunders have been committed in the computer industry that it takes some nerve to point out one of them as the greatest of all. However, in terms of general damage to the peace of mind of humanity and in terms of irreversible introduction of ineptitude, of confusion and of potential exploitation of computer users, few decisions in the history of computing even come close to the mess promulgated by IBM on the day it decided to let Bill Gates and a one-room, one-employee Seattle firm named Microsoft provide the operating system for the first IBM PC.

This perfect situation ended for IBM when Eniac appeared... (the first big computer based on electronic circuitry) and General Electric, RCA, and several other firms decided to get into the 'Tabulating Machine' business with a new generation of computing devices to be called, logically enough, 'Computers.' As was to be expected from an industry of novices, these machines would do almost exactly what the venerable Tabulating Machine from IBMs already did perfectly well... read cards and print reports. However, they would be BIGGER! And BETTER! and MORE SOPHISTICATED! And most important, they would be MORE EXPENSIVE! You could charge, at most, a couple of hundred dollars a month rent for a Tabulating Machine, but these new 'computers' would be so fast and efficient in comparison (sic) that you could charge thousands of dollars a month, maybe... why not!!!!????? THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS PER HOUR!

Does that sound absurd? Not to the dreamers of the early 1960s, it didn't, and they were right... by 1968, the largest IBM computers would be renting out their spare computing time at $1000 per hour or more and finding plenty of takers.

IBM had no choice but to join the pack... and in fact, lead the pack. After a few mildly successful forays with computers the size of a Tabulating Machine, IBM pulled all the stops and started to build the IBM-360 series of computers.

Everything went well, except for the creation of the operating system. You couldn't run these new machines with pinboards full of wires. They needed a new type of complex program called an Operating System.

IBM sent dozens of mathematicians and engineers to the task, telling them not to come back until they had a perfect OS (Operating System) to run the 360-series computers. When these pioneers didn't come back on time, they sent a few dozen more, then a few dozen more... and then, in a race against time and against the fledgling competition, eventually they sent hundreds of brains into the fray, trying to beat their new OS, named DOS (pronounced DOSS), into something you could depend on.

The tale of this heroic development project has been well documented in a book by one of the project leaders. His most memorable line: 'It's a humbling business to make a multi-million dollar mistake.' (This, in a day when a million dollars was still a lot of dough, even to IBM.)

The bottom line is that IBM spent more money developing its first operating system than the U.S. government spent developing the first atomic bomb. IBM got its fingers burned, and good. DOS cost IBM more than the Manhattan Project, which until OS had probably been the most expensive project of the 20th century.

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Small wonder, then, that IBM wasn't exactly enamoured with the job of writing operating systems.... and eager to avoid it at all costs, next time around. That moment came up soon enough, in 1980, when IBM, watching Apple grow from a backyard hobby den into a force in the computing marketplace, realized that it was going to have to bring out its own brand of desktop computer.

Hardware? That would be no problem... IBM had been making office hardware for sixty years now.... but the software... the operating system? Not on your life, said IBM. Once bitten, twice shy! No more Manhattan project budgets for Big Blue. Besides, this was a new toy-like machine which you couldn't rent to people and which you could only charge a few thousand bucks for! So IBM decided, 'We'll just BUY an operating system!'

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The tale of IBM's fateful shopping trip is now so famous that it's almost common knowledge, but we'll repeat it here for those who still haven't heard the story. IBM headed to Seattle, where they had appointments with Digital Research, a small firm with an operating system for sale, and with Microsoft, an even smaller firm with a BASIC compiler for sale. IBM had decided they needed both for their new hardware, and apparently had decided to buy both the same day, thus saving a few bucks on airline tickets and hotels. This thrifty move by the boys from Big Blue was to change the history of computing for all time.

First, theIBMers got stood up at Digital Research. The guys who were supposed to be there to meet them and make the pitch simply weren't! How and why this major goof occurred is still a matter for conjecture: timidity, a flat tire, nerdish indifference to calendars, or a joke played on Big Blue? Or maybe DR just couldn't get their system to work on IBM's chip and were ashamed to show their face. We'll never know.

All we know is that after moving on to Microsoft, and negotiating with a just-out-of-his-teens William Gates, Jr. for a BASIC compiler, the lads from IBM mentioned how rude the people at Digital Research were, how they'd never even gotten a look at the Operating System they'd come North to see.

"An Operating System? Why, I've got one of those!' said Gates, cool and calculating, waving a little 5 1/2 inch diskette with a hand-written label in the face of the boys from Down South. 'I've got the solution to all your problems right here!'

One unkind rumor has it that Gates hadn't even checked out what was on the diskette... that it had been given to him by someone looking for an opinion on a little operating system he'd written. Only Bill knows the if that rumour is true... but it's a moot point. The IBM contingent was thrilled not to be going home empty-handed, and a deal was written on the spot.

The problem with IBM's purchase is this: whether written by Microsoft or the Unknown Soldier, the operating system (christened (on the spot?) MS/DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System) was pretty weak. It had MAJOR problems in the basic design: a flakey file architecture, a fragile indexing system, hard-to-learn syntax, virtually no error-protection, no help system to speak of, and pitiful data-protection capabilities.

In fact, MS/DOS lacked virtually every quality which a good operating system ought to have... but IBM bought it, all the same... anything to avoid another Manhattan project. They were short of time, and out of patience, and as the proverb puts it, 'God protect me from ever being in a hurry!' In a rush, IBM made a multi-billion dollar mistake, a monstrous blunder. They saddled the entire PC world with a clumsy, unreliable, badly-designed, hard-to-use and hard-to-learn operating system... and that legacy lives on still twenty years later.

Co-incidentally, IBM's hasty decision also put an unknown young techie in a position to become the richest man on earth and holder of the biggest, most lucrative monopoly on the planet. But IBM's worst crime was saddling the world with a flawed operating system architecture which would only get worse with time.

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