Milestone-Proposal:BIRTH OF THE PC OPERATING SYSTEM 1974

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Docket #:

This Proposal has been approved, and is now a Milestone


To the proposer’s knowledge, is this achievement subject to litigation?


Is the achievement you are proposing more than 25 years old? Yes

Is the achievement you are proposing within IEEE’s designated fields as defined by IEEE Bylaw I-104.11, namely: Engineering, Computer Sciences and Information Technology, Physical Sciences, Biological and Medical Sciences, Mathematics, Technical Communications, Education, Management, and Law and Policy. Yes

Did the achievement provide a meaningful benefit for humanity? Yes

Was it of at least regional importance? Yes

Has an IEEE Organizational Unit agreed to pay for the milestone plaque(s)? Yes

Has an IEEE Organizational Unit agreed to arrange the dedication ceremony? Yes

Has the IEEE Section in which the milestone is located agreed to take responsibility for the plaque after it is dedicated? Yes

Has the owner of the site agreed to have it designated as an IEEE Milestone? Yes


Year or range of years in which the achievement occurred:

1974

Title of the proposed milestone:

Birth of the PC Operating System, 1974

Plaque citation summarizing the achievement and its significance:

Dr. Gary A. Kildall demonstrated the first working prototype of CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers) in Pacific Grove in 1974. Together with his invention of the BIOS (Basic Input Output System), Kildall’s operating system allowed a microprocessor-based computer to communicate with a disk drive storage unit and provided the software foundation for the personal computer revolution.

200-250 word abstract describing the significance of the technical achievement being proposed, the person(s) involved, historical context, humanitarian and social impact, as well as any possible controversies the advocate might need to review.


IEEE technical societies and technical councils within whose fields of interest the Milestone proposal resides.


In what IEEE section(s) does it reside?

Santa Clara Valley Section

IEEE Organizational Unit(s) which have agreed to sponsor the Milestone:

IEEE Organizational Unit(s) paying for milestone plaque(s):

Unit: Santa Clara Valley Section
Senior Officer Name: {{{Senior officer name}}}

IEEE Organizational Unit(s) arranging the dedication ceremony:

Unit: Santa Clara Valley Section
Senior Officer Name: {{{Senior officer name}}}

IEEE section(s) monitoring the plaque(s):

IEEE Section: Santa Clara Valley Section
IEEE Section Chair name: {{{Section chair name}}}

Milestone proposer(s):

Proposer name: Richard Ahrons
Proposer email: Proposer's email masked to public

Proposer name: David Laws
Proposer email: Proposer's email masked to public

Please note: your email address and contact information will be masked on the website for privacy reasons. Only IEEE History Center Staff will be able to view the email address.

Street address(es) and GPS coordinates in decimal form of the intended milestone plaque site(s):

801 Lighthouse Avenue, Pacific Grove, CA 93950 GPS: 36.623549,-121.923315

Describe briefly the intended site(s) of the milestone plaque(s). The intended site(s) must have a direct connection with the achievement (e.g. where developed, invented, tested, demonstrated, installed, or operated, etc.). A museum where a device or example of the technology is displayed, or the university where the inventor studied, are not, in themselves, sufficient connection for a milestone plaque.

Please give the address(es) of the plaque site(s) (GPS coordinates if you have them). Also please give the details of the mounting, i.e. on the outside of the building, in the ground floor entrance hall, on a plinth on the grounds, etc. If visitors to the plaque site will need to go through security, or make an appointment, please give the contact information visitors will need. Digital Research, Inc. (DRI) founder Gary Kildall developed the first working prototype of the CP/M operating system in his home on nearby Bayview Avenue in 1973 and 1974 and released a commercial version (1.3) on incorporating the company in 1976. The intended site for the plaque, a Victorian house at the the corner of Lighthouse Avenue and Willow Street, Pacific Grove, served as the DRI headquarters building from 1978 to 1991. This was the site of the infamous 1980 negotiations with IBM of a licensing agreement to offer the CP/M-86 version of the operating system for sale with IBM PCs.

Are the original buildings extant?

Yes. The building is again used as a private residence.

Details of the plaque mounting:

The plaque will be mounted at the edge of the public sidewalk adjacent to a retaining wall surrounding the property.

How is the site protected/secured, and in what ways is it accessible to the public?

The plaque will be mounted flush with the surface of the sidewalk and securely embedded in the concrete.

Who is the present owner of the site(s)?

City of Pacific Grove. The Director of Public Works/Community Development has given verbal permission to place the plaque on city property. Written permission will be granted when formal application to install the plaque is submitted to the city following approval by the History Committee and the IEEE Board of Directors.

What is the historical significance of the work (its technological, scientific, or social importance)? If personal names are included in citation, include justification here. (see section 6 of Milestone Guidelines)

CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers) was the first commercial operating system to allow a microprocessor-based computer to interface to a disk drive storage unit. CP/M played an important role in stimulating the hobbyist personal computer movement of the 1970s. Its ability to run on a wide variety of hardware configurations enabled early use of microcomputer systems in business and scientific applications. Microsoft DOS, as licensed to IBM for the original IBM PC, was written to emulate the "look and feel" of CP/M. Thus CP/M was the forerunner of the operating systems that now power the majority of the world’s computers and led to the personal computing revolution.

What obstacles (technical, political, geographic) needed to be overcome?

The following is abstracted from pages 53 - 55 of "Computer Connections", an unpublished autobiography written by Gary Kildall in 1994. "Memorex ... had come up with the new "floppy disk" to replace IBM punched cards. You need some fairly complex electronics ... to make the diskette drive find certain locations and transfer data back an forth. I can tell you I stared at that damn diskette drive for hours on end ... trying to figure a way to make it fly. So I built an operating system ... I called it CP/M [but] I just couldn't figure out how to make that damn disk drive work. Out of frustration, I called my good friend from the University of Washington, John Torode. He designed a neat little microcontroller and after a few months of testing that microcontroller started to work. We loaded my CP/M program from paper tape to the diskette and "booted" CP/M from the diskette, and up came the prompt *. This may have been one of the most exciting days of my life"

What features set this work apart from similar achievements?


Supporting texts and citations to establish the dates, location, and importance of the achievement: Minimum of five (5), but as many as needed to support the milestone, such as patents, contemporary newspaper articles, journal articles, or chapters in scholarly books. 'Scholarly' is defined as peer-reviewed, with references, and published. You must supply the texts or excerpts themselves, not just the references. At least one of the references must be from a scholarly book or journal article. All supporting materials must be in English, or accompanied by an English translation.


Supporting materials (supported formats: GIF, JPEG, PNG, PDF, DOC): All supporting materials must be in English, or if not in English, accompanied by an English translation. You must supply the texts or excerpts themselves, not just the references. For documents that are copyright-encumbered, or which you do not have rights to post, email the documents themselves to ieee-history@ieee.org. Please see the Milestone Program Guidelines for more information.


Please email a jpeg or PDF a letter in English, or with English translation, from the site owner(s) giving permission to place IEEE milestone plaque on the property, and a letter (or forwarded email) from the appropriate Section Chair supporting the Milestone application to ieee-history@ieee.org with the subject line "Attention: Milestone Administrator." Note that there are multiple texts of the letter depending on whether an IEEE organizational unit other than the section will be paying for the plaque(s).

Please recommend reviewers by emailing their names and email addresses to ieee-history@ieee.org. Please include the docket number and brief title of your proposal in the subject line of all emails.