Actually CP/M was a great operating system for it's time. It was also a good example of how a great company can loose everything and fold because they are too greedy. Early PC's used CP/M but it was tightly controlled and very expensive. Microsoft cleaned their clock and everything eventually switch to Microsoft because the CP/M folks would not lower their prices. As I recall, the wife of CP/M developer was in my high school graduating class as was Peter Norton. Bill Gates was from a different High School but I think the same year. I got to meet Peter Norton at one of our class reunions. Seattle seemed to be where it was at in the old days. It was too bad that the CP/M folks did not adjust to the market. It actually was also cross platform operating system with only a few files needed to adapt it to different hardware/processors.
Similar situation with Digital Equipment Corporation. I have a lot of experience on the DEC platforms starting with the PDP-11 and up through most of the mainframes. DEC's operating systems were the greatest and so was the hardware. Ten years ago a single seat license on a microvax cost about $2K while Microsoft was about $100 I think. Another great company that bit the dust because they would not adjust to the market. Anyone need any DEC parts? I have a storage unit full of them.
