alt Hacker NewsI remember the early IBM PC days. PC-DOS was $40. CPM/86 was $240. Both were available, people simply picked the cheaper one. I used both, and there was nothing better about CPM/86.
Due to inflation, this is like $113 vs $679 today. It was a no-brainer to buy MS-DOS instead. Kildall clearly was a businessman wanting to make money off of it.
It was IBM who set the price. According to Kildall’s right-hand Tom Rolander, they were shocked when they saw the price difference.