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Some time during the DR DOS project (I'm not sure if it was in 1988
or 1989), before the company had been taken over by Novell, DRI founder
Gary Kildall visited us at the European Development Centre in Hungerford,
UK.
Our team consisted mostly of Britons (English, Welsh and Scots), with
me as the only continental European. Unknown to many outside of the company,
DR DOS which became one of the most successful products (and probably the
reason why the company was acquired by Novell), was developed entirely in
Europe, by Europeans. The core team initially consisted of John Constant,
myself, Anthony Hay and a few others. The first released version was 3.41,
followed by 5.0, 6.0 and 7.0. Later versions were called Novell DOS.
Gary in England
Gary was accompanied by Frank Holsworth, who was one of the brains behind
MP/M-86, Concurrent CP/M and what later became known as FlexOS. He's the
one giving a presentation here. To his right are Andy Wightman, head of
engineering at the EDC, Gary and Jenny Shelton, one of the EDC engineers.
Gary at EDC conference
It was real fun to talk to Gary. He was such an engineer
for someone who'd built a multi-million dollar company that
at one point dominated an industry.
In the background on the left you can see one of my Bavarian
hats as I chose to wear my traditional costume for the day.
Also in the back are (l.t.r.): Glenn Stevens, long-time
Concurrent DOS engineering manager and one of the fathers of
CDOS 386; John Bromhead, Roger Gross and Mike
Greenwood (CDOS technical support manager and successful
London-to-Sydney rallye veteran).
Dieter and Gary
Gary is having a chat with Dieter Giesbrecht who first headed
DR Germany and later all of DR Europe. On the left is John
Linney and on the right Glenn Stevens.
Gary giving a demo
Gary doing a demo on his portable. He was a big fan of DR DOS
which for several years provided the cashflow to keep DRI alive
while being a thorn in the side of Microsoft.
Frank and Gary
In the evening we engineers took them out to dinner at a good Chinese
restaurant. It was really pleasant to talk to Gary who was very natural
and very open and accessible.
Here's another picture taken at the same table. On the left is Anthony
Hay, who had been with DR UK even before I started.
"They Made America" by Harold Evans
This excellent book, created in tandem with a four part PBS series, dedicates an entire chapter to the important contributions that Gary has made to the computer revolution and the history of his conflict with Bill Gates. It profiles Gary amongst 70 of America's leading inventors, entrepreneurs and innovators.
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