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 Original headquarters of Digital Research on 801 Lighthouse Ave,Pacific Grove, California. On the sidewalk, to the left, is a commemorative plaque. | |
| Company type | Private[1] |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software |
| Founded | 1974; 51 years ago (1974) inPacific Grove, California, U.S. |
| Founder | Gary Kildall |
| Defunct | 1991; 34 years ago (1991) |
| Fate | Acquired byNovell |
| Headquarters |
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Key people | |
| Products | Compilers,operating systems,graphical user interfaces |
| Revenue | |
Number of employees | |
| Website | www |
Digital Research, Inc. (DR orDRI) was a privately held American software company created byGary Kildall to market and develop hisCP/M operating system and related 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit systems likeMP/M,Concurrent DOS,FlexOS,Multiuser DOS,DOS Plus,DR DOS andGEM. It was the first large software company in themicrocomputer world.[9] Digital Research was originally based inPacific Grove, California, later inMonterey, California.
In 1972,Gary Kildall, an instructor at theNaval Postgraduate School inMonterey, California, began working atIntel as aconsultant under the business nameMicrocomputer Applications Associates (MAA).[10] By 1974, he had developed Control Program/Monitor, orCP/M, the firstdisk operating system formicrocomputers.
In 1974 he incorporated asIntergalactic Digital Research, with his wife handling the business side of the operation.[10] The company soon began operating under its shortened name Digital Research.[10] The company's operating systems, starting withCP/M for8080/Z80-based microcomputers, were thede facto standard of their era. Digital Research's product suite included the original 8-bit CP/M and its various offshoots likeMP/M (1979), a multi-tasking multi-user version of CP/M.[citation needed]
After Microsoft presentedMS-DOS that was based onCP/M, Digital Research releasedCP/M-86, which was the first16-bit system (1981, adapted to the IBM PC in early 1982), which was meant as direct competitor toMS-DOS. There followed the multi-taskingMP/M-86 (1981), andConcurrent CP/M (1982), a single-user version featuring virtual consoles from which applications could be launched to run concurrently.[11] The company's documentation had a poor reputation, withJerry Pournelle in 1982 describing it as seemingly "encrypted and translated into Swahili".[12] andInfoWorld calling its CP/M manuals incomplete, incomprehensible, and poorly indexed.[13]
By 1983, DRI began using distributors to sell its CP/M-86 applications in stores.[14] In May 1983 the company announced that it would offer PC DOS versions of all of its languages and utilities.[15] It remained influential, withUS$45 million in 1983 sales making Digital Research the fourth-largest microcomputer software company.[2] Admitting that it had "lost" the 8088 software market but hoped to succeed with theIntel 80286 andMotorola 68000, by 1984 the company formed a partnership withAT&T Corporation to develop software forUnix System V and sell its own and third-party products in retail stores.[16] Pournelle warned later that year, however, that "Many people of stature seem to have left or are leaving Digital Research. DR had better get its act together."[17]
In a parallel development Digital Research also produced a selection ofprogramming languagecompilers andinterpreters for their OS-supported platforms, includingC,Pascal,COBOL,FORTRAN,PL/I,PL/M,CBASIC,BASIC, andLogo.
Digital Research developedCP/M-86 as an alternative to MS-DOS and it was made available through IBM in early 1982. The company later created an MS-DOS clone with advanced features calledDR DOS, which pressured Microsoft to further improve its own DOS.
At the time theIBM Personal Computer was being developed, Digital Research's CP/M was the dominant operating system of the day. In 1980, IBM asked Digital Research to supply a version of CP/M written for theIntel 8086 microprocessor as the standard operating system for the PC, which would use the code-compatibleIntel 8088 chip. Digital Research, uneasy about the conditions related to making such an agreement with IBM, refused.[citation needed]
Microsoft seized this opportunity to supply an OS, in addition to other software (e.g.,BASIC) for the new IBM PC. When the IBM PC arrived in late 1981, it came withPC DOS, an OEM version ofMS-DOS, which was developed from86-DOS, which Microsoft had acquired for this purpose. By mid-1982,MS-DOS was also marketed for use in hardware-compatible non-IBM computers. This one decision resulted in Microsoft becoming the leading name in computer software.
This story is detailed from the point of view of Microsoft and IBM in thePBS seriesTriumph of the Nerds,[18] and from the point of view of Gary Kildall's friends and coworkers inThe Computer Chronicles.[19]
The competition between MS-DOS and DR DOS is one of the more controversial chapters of microcomputer history. Microsoft offered better licensing terms to any computer manufacturer that committed to selling MS-DOS with every system they shipped, making it uneconomical for them to offer systems with another OS, since the manufacturer would still be required to pay a license fee to Microsoft for that system. This practice led to a US Department of Justice investigation, resulting in a decision in 1994 that barred Microsoft from "per-processor" licensing.[20]
Successive revisions of Concurrent CP/M incorporatedMS-DOS API emulation (since 1983), which gradually added more support for DOS applications and theFAT file system. These versions were namedConcurrent DOS (1984), withConcurrent PC DOS (1984) being the version adapted to run on IBM compatible PCs.[citation needed]
In 1985, soon after the introduction of the80286-basedIBM PC/AT, Digital Research introduced a real-time system, initially calledConcurrent DOS 286.
Other single-user operative systems were launched:DOS Plus (1985) andDR DOS (1988). The latter system was marketed as a direct MS-DOS/PC DOS replacement with added functionality. In order to achieve this, it gave up built-in support to run CP/M applications and was changed to use DOS-compatible internal structures. It became a successful product line in itself.[citation needed]
In 1985 Digital Research also produced a microcomputer version of theGKS graphics standard (related toNAPLPS) calledGSX, and later used this as the basis of theirGEMGUI. Less known are their application programs, limited largely to the GSX-based DR DRAW and a small suite of GUI programs for GEM. After the development of GEM, Microsoft introducedWindows 1.0.
Digital Research (and later its successorCaldera) accused Microsoft of announcingvaporware versions of MS-DOS to suppress sales of DR DOS.[citation needed]
Concurrent PC DOS later evolved into the modularFlexOS (1986). This exploited the greater memory addressing capability of the newCPU to provide a more flexible multi-tasking environment. There was a small but powerful set of systemAPIs, each with a synchronous and an asynchronous variant.Pipes were supported, and all named resources could be aliased by settingenvironment variables. This system was to enjoy enduring favour in point-of-sale systems.[citation needed]
Other successors of Concurrent DOS wereConcurrent DOS XM (1986) and the 32-bitConcurrent DOS 386 (1987).
![Logo of Digital Research used briefly toward the end of its independent existence, from March 1990[21] to 1991](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aDigital_Research_logo_1990.svg){kind=logo}
In 1991 DR presentedMultiuser DOS. Digital Research's multi-user family of operating systems was sidelined with the previous single user operative systems.[citation needed]
In onebeta release ofWindows 3.1, Microsoft included hidden code (later called theAARD code) that detected DR DOS and displayed a cryptic error message.[22][4]
Digital Research was purchased byNovell for US$80 million in 1991,[23] primarily for Novell to gain access to their operating system line, includingFlexOS, which had already been adopted as the basis forSiemens S5-DOS/MT,IBM 4680 OS, and the4690 OS.
Several notable employees worked at Digital Research, some of which later made important contributions to the IT industry, such as:
Novell purchased Digital Research for $80 million in 1991 as part of Noorda's strategy to compete directly with Microsoft across a broad..
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