The ALGOL compiler was probably one of the nicest pieces of code to co — Gary Kildall

"The first commercial licensing of took place in 1975 with contracts between Digital Systems and for use in their intelligent terminal, and with where CP/M was used to monitor programs in the Octopus network. Little attention was paid to CP/M for about a year. In my spare time, I worked to improve overall facilities... By this time, CP/M had been adapted for four different controllers.... In 1976, approached me with a problem: Imsai, Incorporated, for whom Glenn consulted, had shipped a large number of disk subsystems with a promise that an operating system would follow. I was somewhat reluctant to adapt CP/M to yet another controller, and thus the notion of a separated Basic I/O System (BIOS) evolved. In principle, the hardware dependent portions of CP/M were concentrated in the BIOS, thus allowing Glenn, or anyone else, to adapt CP/M to the Imsai equipment. Imsai was subsequently licensed to distribute CP/M version 1.3 which eventually evolved into an operating system called"

"It was Garys bad luck that put him up against the most skilled businessman of all time. Anyone looks like a failure standing next to Bill Gates."

"I expected too much of educators. I expected them to understand, in a sense, the sugar-coated concepts of LISP used in AI that were embodied in the Logo language. It was then that I learned that computers were built to make money, not minds."

"You need to study other peoples work. Their approaches to problem solving and the tools they use give you a fresh way to look at your own work."

"Its fun to sit at a terminal and let the code flow. It sounds strange, but it just comes out my brain; once Im started, I dont have to think about it."

"Ive told this story to lots of people and they just wont get it. All they want to get is that IBM showed up and Gary was off flying his aeroplane. The problem is that this is very wrong.… The real issue wasnt that Gary refused to talk to IBM. The real issue was that Microsoft had a much better vision for the business. Gary was very laid-back. He did not care that much."