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Gary Kildall - Founder of Personal Computing

Gary Kildall, Ph.D., 1922-1994

Kildall created CP/M ("Control Program/Monitor" or "Control Program for Microcomputers") in 1974.  CP/M was eventually marketed by his company, Digital Research.  This system, and particularly the layered, open architecture of Application/BDOS/BIOS, made possible the third-party software revolution and productive use of microcomputers by individuals and small companies.

The personal computer revolution was first supported by small businesses and individuals, starting in 1976, running CP/M on commercial systems such as the IMSAI 8080 (San Leandro, Ca), the Godbout/Compupro systems (Oakland, Ca), and Thinker Toys (Berkeley, Ca), etc.

Gary also created:

  • MP/M (a multitasking version of CP/M (1978)),
  • Concurrent DOS (a four session preemptive multi-tasking version of MS DOS (1984?)),
  • GEM (the first, commercial, graphical user interface (1980)),
  • KnowledgeSet (optical disk publishing, aka CD-ROMs),

From the 1997 Dr. Dobb's Journal Excellence in Programming Award:

  • "Introducing operating systems with preemptive multitasking and windowing capability, and menu-driven user interfaces.
  • Creating the first floppy-disk track buffering scheme, read-ahead algorithms, file directory caches, and RAM disk emulators.
  • Defining the first programming language and writing the first compiler specifically for microprocessors.
  • Creating the first microcomputer operating system.
  • Creating the first computer interface for video disks to allow automatic nonlinear playback, presaging today's interactive multimedia.
  • Developing the file system and data structures for the first consumer CD-ROM.
  • Creating the first successful open system architecture by segmenting system-specific hardware interfaces in a set of BIOS routines, ushering in the third-party software industry."

References:

Page modified: 07 Jul 2010 18:25:14 -0700

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