I heard that Gary Kildall missed the chance to make CP/M the IBM PC operating system because he decided to go flying on the day the IBM reps had an appointment. Is this true?
This answer comes from the book “Hard Drive”; it says there are two versions of this story. One is from Jack Sams, the guy from IBM who went to DR to meet Kildall. He says that Kildall was out, flying on his plane, and Kildall’s wife and a DR’s lawyer met with him (Sams). They did not want to sign a non-disclosure agreement with IBM, so IBM went away without even talking with Kildall. (That agreement said that DR could not tell IBM confidential information, but if DR did so, IBM could not be sued for using it; and DR would be sued if it used any confidential information that IBM gave them.) That night, they went to Seattle and made the deal with Microsoft. But Kildall tells a different history: he says he really was out on his plane, but he was on a business trip at San Francisco, and he was back to DR in time to meet with the IBM guys. He signed the agreement, had the meeting, and apparently thought that they and a deal. That night, he and his wife went to Miami with the IBM guys (in
