Gary Kildall
From Wikiquote
Gary Kildall (May 19, 1942 – July 11, 1994) was an American computer scientist, founder of Digital Research, Inc. and creator of CP/M, the first standard operating system for personal computers.
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- It's fun to sit at a terminal and let the code flow. It sounds strange, but it just comes out my brain; once I'm started, I don't have to think about it.
- Programmers at Work (1986)
- You need to study other people's work. Their approaches to problem solving and the tools they use give you a fresh way to look at your own work.
- Programmers at Work (1986)
- The ALGOL compiler was probably one of the nicest pieces of code to come out at that time. I spent hours trying to fix and change the compiler. Working with it so closely affected the way I think about programming and had a profound influence on my style.
- Programmers at Work (1986)
- Ask Bill [Gates] why the string in [MS-DOS] function 9 is terminated by a dollar sign. Ask him, because he can't answer. Only I know that.
- Quoted in James Wallace and Jim Erickson (1991-05-08), "Bill Gates: Of Mind and Money", Seattle Post-Intelligencer
- 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.
- Unpublished memoir Computer Connections, on the prevalence of BASIC in programming education; quoted in a eulogy delivered by Tom Rolander
- He is divisive. He is manipulative. He is a user. He has taken much from me and the industry.
- Unpublished memoir Computer Connections, referring to Bill Gates; quoted in Paul Andrews (14 July 1994), "A Career Spent in Gates' Shadow—Computer Pioneer Dies at 52", Seattle Times
[edit] About Gary Kildall
- Gary Kildall was one of the original pioneers of the PC revolution. He was a very creative computer scientist who did excellent work. Although we were competitors, I always had tremendous respect for his contributions to the PC industry. His untimely death was very unfortunate and he and his work will be missed.
- Bill Gates, quoted in The Computer Chronicles. "Special Edition: Gary Kildall." (1995)
- It was Gary's bad luck that put him up against the most skilled businessman of all time. Anyone looks like a failure standing next to Bill Gates.
- Alan Cooper, quoted in Freiberger and Swaine (1999), Fire in the Valley
- I've told this story to lots of people and they just won't 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 wasn't 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.
- Gordon Eubanks, "Recollections of Gary Kildall", on IBM's attempt to license CP/M for the IBM PC
