IBM also licensed Microsoft’s BASIC programming language, all that company's other languages, and several of its fledging applications. Over the course of the day, a contract was worked out whereby IBM would purchase, for a one-time fee of about $80,000, perpetual rights to Gates’ MS-DOS operating system for its upcoming PC. He wasn’t here to win a fashion competition. Bill’s suit was rumpled and ill-fitting, but it didn’t matter. He went into a room full of IBM lawyers, all dressed in immaculately tailored suits.
It was a cloudy Seattle day in late 1980, and Bill Gates, the young chairman of a tiny company called Microsoft, had an appointment with IBM that would shape the destiny of the industry for decades to come.
This story first ran in November 2013, and it appears unchanged below. With folks off for the holiday, we're resurfacing this consumer tech classic from the archives-a look at why we're not all trying to buy an IBM PS/10 today and updating to OS/12, perhaps. Update: It's the day after Thanksgiving in the US, meaning most Ars staffers are on the lookout for deals rather than potential stories.
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