Gary Kildall

Gary Kildall was an American computer scientist, entrepreneur, and author who played a foundational role in the early personal computer industry. He is best known for creating the CP/M operating system, which became the dominant platform for early microcomputers, and for founding the influential software company Digital Research, Inc. His work preceded and influenced the development of MS-DOS and the rise of the IBM PC ecosystem, though a historic missed meeting with IBM is often cited as a pivotal moment in computing history. Kildall's later career involved pioneering work in optical disc storage, multimedia, and computer-assisted instruction.

Early life and education

Born in Seattle, he displayed an early aptitude for mechanics and electronics. He attended the University of Washington, initially pursuing a degree in mathematics before shifting his focus to computer science. He earned a Bachelor of Science in 1967, followed by a Master of Science in 1968, and completed his Doctor of Philosophy in 1972, with his dissertation involving the application of flow analysis to optimizing compilers. During his graduate studies, he served as a computer programming instructor for the United States Navy, where he first gained extensive hands-on experience with mainframe computer systems.

Career and CP/M

After completing his doctorate, Kildall became a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. His access to an Intel 4004 development system sparked his interest in microprocessors. He created the first high-level programming language for microprocessors, called PL/M, for Intel. His seminal achievement was developing the Control Program for Microcomputers (CP/M) in 1974, an operating system that abstracted hardware specifics, allowing it to run on various machines built around the Intel 8080 and Zilog Z80 CPUs. He and his wife, Dorothy McEwen, founded Intergalactic Digital Research, later Digital Research, Inc. (DRI), to market CP/M, which became an industry standard, powering computers from companies like Kaypro, Osborne, and many others throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Later work and Digital Research

Following the rise of the IBM Personal Computer and its MS-DOS operating system, which was heavily influenced by CP/M, Kildall led DRI to develop successors like CP/M-86 and Concurrent CP/M. He also oversaw the creation of the Graphics Environment Manager (GEM), an early graphical user interface. In the mid-1980s, his interests shifted toward emerging technologies; he worked on one of the first CD-ROM software titles, the multimedia encyclopedia The New Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia. He left active management of DRI, which was later sold to Novell, and founded KnowledgeSet, a company focused on optical disc publishing, and later Prometheus Light and Sound, which worked on interactive television projects.

Personal life and death

He was married twice, first to business partner Dorothy McEwen and later to Karen Kildall. He had a son and a daughter. An avid pilot, he owned several aircraft and was deeply interested in racing cars. In his later years, he lived in Austin and Lake Tahoe. His life was marked by frustration over his legacy being overshadowed in popular narratives by the success of Microsoft and Bill Gates. He died on July 11, 1994, at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula from injuries sustained in a fall at a furniture store; the coroner's report listed the cause as blunt force trauma to the head, and the death was ruled an accident.

Legacy and honors

He is widely recognized as a pioneer of the personal computer revolution. The Software & Information Industry Association posthumously awarded him its Codie award in 1995. In 2016, he was inducted as a Fellow of the Computer History Museum for his development of CP/M and contributions to personal computing. Historians credit his work with establishing the concept of a portable operating system for microcomputers and creating the first commercially successful software ecosystem for hardware platforms from multiple OEMs. His story is frequently discussed in histories of the industry, such as those by Harold Evans and Michael S. Malone, as a critical "what-if" scenario in the battle for software supremacy.