Tim Paterson

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Tim Paterson
Born 1956
Occupation computer programmer, software designer
Website
Paterson's Company

Tim Paterson (born 1956) is an American computer programmer, best known as the original author of MS-DOS, the most widely used operating system in the 1980s[citation needed].

Educated at the University of Washington, Paterson worked as a repair technician for a computer store in Seattle, Washington. After he graduated magna cum laude in June 1978, he went to work for Seattle Computer Products as a designer and engineer. He designed a schematic of Microsoft's Z-80 SoftCard which had a Z80 CPU and ran the CP/M operating system on an Apple II.

A month later, Intel released the 8086 CPU, and Paterson went to work designing an S-100 8086 board, which went to market in November 1979. The only commercial software that existed for the board was a standalone version of Microsoft BASIC. The standard CP/M operating system at the time was not available for this CPU and without a true operating system, sales were slow. Paterson began work on QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) in April 1980 to fill that void, copying the APIs of CP/M from sources including the published CP/M manual so that it would be highly compatible. QDOS was soon renamed as 86-DOS. Version 0.10 was complete by July 1980. By version 1.14 86-DOS had grown to 4,000 lines of assembly code.[1] In December 1980 Microsoft secured the rights to market 86-DOS to other hardware manufacturers.

While acknowledging that he made 86-DOS compatible with CP/M, Paterson has maintained that the 86-DOS program was his original work and has denied allegations that he referred to CP/M's code while writing it.[2] When a book appeared in 2004 claiming that 86-DOS was an unoriginal "rip-off" of CP/M,[3] Paterson sued the authors and publishers for defamation.[4][5] The judge found that Paterson failed to 'provide any evidence regarding “serious doubts” about the accuracy of the Gary Kildall chapter. Instead, a careful review of the Lefer notes ... provides a research picture tellingly close to the substance of the final chapter' and the case was dismissed on the basis that the book's claims were constitutionally protected opinions and not provably false.[6]

Paterson left SCP in April 1981 and worked for Microsoft from May 1981 to April 1982. After a brief second stint with SCP, Paterson started his own company, Falcon Technology, which was bought by Microsoft in 1986. Paterson did a second stint with Microsoft from 1986-1988 and a third stint from 1990-1998. During his third stint at Microsoft, he worked on Visual Basic.

After leaving Microsoft a third time, Paterson founded another software development company, Paterson Technology, and also made several appearances on the Comedy Central television program Battlebots. Paterson also races rally cars in the SCCA Pro Rally series, and even engineered his own trip computer which he integrated into the axle of a four-wheel drive Porsche 911.

[edit] Quotes

"Life begins with a disk drive."

– Tim Paterson [7]

"IBM wanted CP/M prompts. It made me throw up."

– Tim Paterson [7]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Duncan, Ray [1988]. The MS-DOS Encyclopedia. Microsoft Press, p. 20. ISBN 1-55615-049-0. 
  2. ^ Paterson, Tim (1994-10-03). "From the Mailbox: The Origins of DOS". Microprocessor Report. 
  3. ^ Evans, Donald. They Made America: From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine
  4. ^ "Programmer sues author over role in Microsoft history", USA Today, 2005-03-02. Retrieved on 2006-11-20. 
  5. ^ Paterson v. Little, Brown, and Co., et al. (2005-02-28). W. D. Wash. Retrieved on 2006-11-20.
  6. ^ "MS-DOS paternity suit settled", The Register, 2007-07-30. Retrieved on 2007-07-31. 
  7. ^ a b Hunter, David (1983). "The Roots of DOS". Retrieved on 2007-06-18.

[edit] External links