Why would DOS have been claimed property of the US taxpayers when you are arguing they used that PDP-10 to create basic, not DOS?
Also, why would Harvard do that anyway? They didn't murder someone, they formed one of the biggest companies in history with their computers.
Also did Gates not buy DOS off of Seattle Computer Products? How did he screw him over exactly? Wikipedia says that it ended up making SCP millions of dollars.
1 - Correction: writing late, typo - BASIC should have been property of the US tax payers.
2 - It was still pretty novel back then, but "borrowing" computer time w/o paying for it is (and was) theft of services. Like sneaking into a movie theater without paying. It wasn't their hardware to use, it was a critical part of a commercial endeavor. They didn't have permission in advance to use it. They didn't murder someone, but they were a couple of spoilt brats who figured they could get rich by ripping people off. They ripped off SCP (next point) and they screwed over IBM & Digital Equipment Corp. with the OS/2 gaslighting & NT intellectual property theft (case settled out of court).
3 - Gates wired up the deal with IBM then "bought" 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products knowing very well it was going to be worth millions since people were waiting for IBM to release a PC at the time. SCP made less than a million dollars and had it drawn out in court (from that same article - "Microsoft paid SCP US$925,000 and reclaimed its license for DOS"). He saw an opportunity to play middle man and then shanked SCP.
DoesntMatter22|2 years ago
Also, why would Harvard do that anyway? They didn't murder someone, they formed one of the biggest companies in history with their computers.
Also did Gates not buy DOS off of Seattle Computer Products? How did he screw him over exactly? Wikipedia says that it ended up making SCP millions of dollars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Computer_Products
swagtricker|2 years ago
2 - It was still pretty novel back then, but "borrowing" computer time w/o paying for it is (and was) theft of services. Like sneaking into a movie theater without paying. It wasn't their hardware to use, it was a critical part of a commercial endeavor. They didn't have permission in advance to use it. They didn't murder someone, but they were a couple of spoilt brats who figured they could get rich by ripping people off. They ripped off SCP (next point) and they screwed over IBM & Digital Equipment Corp. with the OS/2 gaslighting & NT intellectual property theft (case settled out of court).
3 - Gates wired up the deal with IBM then "bought" 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products knowing very well it was going to be worth millions since people were waiting for IBM to release a PC at the time. SCP made less than a million dollars and had it drawn out in court (from that same article - "Microsoft paid SCP US$925,000 and reclaimed its license for DOS"). He saw an opportunity to play middle man and then shanked SCP.