So this is how the story came down to me and I think this is the version that has persisted in popular memory.

In 1980, after years of ignoring the nascent personal computer market,

IBM, then the biggest technology company in the world, decides that it wants to create its own personal computer.

But because it is so late to the market, IBM is in a rush.

It decides to cobble together a computer using components from outside vendors instead of developing everything in-house.

And among the components IBM would need for their computer

is an operating system, that basic piece of software that allows the whole machine to run.

And so IBM turned to one of the prominent software companies of the time,

Microsoft, and asked Microsoft to provide an operating system

for what would become the IBM PC. There was only one problem. Microsoft couldn't provide IBM with an operating system because at the time

Microsoft had never actually developed one.

And so Bill Gates tells IBM that it should go pay a visit to Gary Kildall, who had

developed and owned far and away the most popular operating system of the time called

CPM. And this is where the story passes into legend. In short order

IBM rolls up to Gary Kildall's house looking to licensed

CPM as the operating system for the IBM PC, but Gary Kildall isn't home.

He's out joy riding in his private plane. The IBM suits

wait around for a while but start to get impatient waiting for Gary to return and so instead they try to talk with

Gary's wife Dorothy but Dorothy bulks at IBM's entreaties, especially after the IBM lawyers begin the discussion

by pressuring her to sign a draconian non-disclosure agreement.

Dorothy refuses to sign the nondisclosure. IBM gets frustrated and they leave.

IBM goes back to Bill Gates who suddenly says to them, you know what? Microsoft can do an

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