Editing Gary Kildall (section)

== ''Computer Connections'' ==
In 1992, Kildall was invited to the University of Washington computer science program's 25th anniversary event. As a distinguished graduate of the program, Kildall was disappointed when asked to attend simply as an audience member. He also took offense at the decision to give the keynote speech to Bill Gates, a [[Harvard University|Harvard]] dropout who had donated to UW, but had never attended.<ref name="Evans_2004"/>

In response, Kildall began writing a memoir, entitled ''Computer Connections: People, Places, and Events in the Evolution of the Personal Computer Industry''.<ref name="Hamm_2004"/> The memoir,<ref name="Shustek_2016"/><ref name="Perry_2016"/><ref name="Kildall_1993"/> which Kildall sought to publish, expressed his frustration that people did not seem to value elegance in computer software.<ref name="Rolander_1994"/> 
{{Quote box
| width = 30em
| quote = Don't think for a minute that [Bill] Gates made it 'big time' because of his technical savvy.
| author = Gary Kildall
| source = ''Computer Connections''<ref name="Kildall_1993"/>{{rp|62}}
}}
Writing about Bill Gates, Kildall described him as "more of an opportunist than a technical type, and severely opinionated, even when the opinion he holds is absurd."<ref name="Kildall_1993"/>{{rp|62}}

In an appendix, he called DOS "plain and simple theft"<ref>{{Cite web|title=A Career Spent in Gates' Shadow -- Computer Pioneer Dies at 52|url=https://www.tech-insider.org/personal-computers/research/1994/0714.html|access-date=2022-01-19|website=www.tech-insider.org}}</ref> because its first 26 [[system call]]s worked the same as CP/M's.<ref name="Andrews_1994"/> He accused IBM of contriving the price difference between PC&nbsp;DOS and CP/M-86 in order to marginalize CP/M.<ref name="Evans_2004"/>

Kildall had completed a rough draft of the manuscript by the end of 1993,<ref name="Kildall_1993"/> but the full text remains unpublished.  Journalist [[Harold Evans]] used the memoir as a primary source for a chapter about Kildall in the 2004 book ''They Made America'', concluding that Microsoft had robbed Kildall of his inventions.<ref name="Evans_2004"/> IBM veterans from the PC project disputed the book's description of events, and Microsoft described it as "one-sided and inaccurate."<ref name="Hamm_2004"/>

In August 2016, Kildall's family made the first seven chapters of ''Computer Connections'' available as a free public download.<ref name="Perry_2016"/><ref name="Shustek_2016"/><ref name="Kildall_1993"/>