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John Bull

Next up in my Silicon Valley history column after Tramiel is Compaq and Rod Canion.

I get to tell the story about how Compaq got so good at cloning MS DOS for the PC that Bill Gates secretly agreed to licence MS DOS off THEM.

Every MS DOS install on a PC Clone after 1983 was actually Compaq DOS, with the serial numbers filed off by Microsoft.

acb

@garius What was Microsoft’s original DOS missing? Licensing conditions, compatibility with non-IBM hardware, or something else?

John Bull

@acb both. The version for IBM and the version for clones were both forks, developed in isolation to keep IBM sweet.

Compaq had a third fork, from the version of MS DOS as IBM

So once Compaq got better at cloning the PC version in theirs, Gates realised it was cheaper and more efficient to just buy it back off them and sell it on.

Freed up resource for other stuff.

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