But CPM/86 WAS shipped for the PC, by IBM. When I bought my IBM PC, I had a choice of PC-DOS or CPM/86. I chose the former because it was $40 and the latter was $180 or something like that.
It was the price that killed CPM/86, as nobody could give a reason why someone should pay so much more than for PC-DOS.
Definitely ahead of its time. For awhile it was possible to run the same applications on IBM, Apple II, TI-99/4A and more but it was cumbersome and it never had a "killer app".
It was also difficult to transfer files between disparate platforms in those days. If there had ever been a p-code applications market, distribution would have still required separate boxed copies for different platforms.
Then again you wouldn't have the initial JVM bytecode interpreter without p-code and the p-system, which were the bytecode and runtime environment used by UCSD Pascal. These were a direct inspiration for the Sun engineers developing Java.
As mentioned by others, it's pascal implementation and p-code concept were pretty cool. But it left a lot to be desired as an operating system. For example, IIRC, files had to be stored in continuous blocks on the disk and management of blocks were up to the user. If your file needed 10 blocks then you needed to find a hole on the disk with at least 10 blocks... which meant you might need to move other files around to make enough that hole.
Yeah, but it's not clear that given how IBM had cut a deal with Gates and pushed PC-DOS as the default, whether CP/M could realistically have continued as a legitimate alternative with a working business model.
I bought an IBM PC brand new. No software was bundled with it (besides ROM Basic). There was PC-DOS and CPM/86 available in IBM boxes. I picked the far cheaper one. So did about everyone else I knew at the time.
We had both available at work, and I tried CPM/86. I thought it was inferior and awkward compared to PC-DOS. Nobody could justify paying 4-5 times as much for it, even its adherents.
I don't know who set that high price on it, but it was sufficient to destroy CPM/86, no nefarious closed door maneuvering was necessary.
I wish I had a photo of that IBM CPM/86 box, few people believe it existed :-)
Some more context: In "Computer Chronicles" memorial episode, they too did not know who set the high price.
I remember coming upon a website of someone in the industry that asked Gary Kildall, "Who set the high price?". Gary said it was him.
I don't know if the page is up. I also don't know how to find it. I'm betting it's somewhere in the Internet Archive.
Even before OSes, Gates would argue with Allen: "If we give away our programming language for free, we will have high market share!" Allen would reply, "We would also go broke." Source: Andrews and Manes' "Gates": http://www.amazon.com/Gates-Microsofts-Reinvented-Industry-H...
Grabbing market share, low prices... combined w/ Scott Oki's strategic thinking (barriers of entry, legal contracts as competitive tool, from book "Microsoft Generation" http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-First-Generation-Library-Edi...), and MSFT's motto, "We set the standard", it would make sense that MSFT would do it's best to price the OS as low as possible for long-term gain.
Also, there was a Pascal-based OS, but most people forget about that one.
If PC-DOS didn't exist, nobody would have thought twice about the price of CP/M. It was still a small portion of the overall machine price. It's only in the direct comparison, when you realized you were getting less and spending more, that it fell short.
Could have something to do with Microsoft acquiring Seattle Computer DOS for $25,000 vs. Digital Research investing what I imagine is quite a bit more to port CP/M to the 8086.
It was the price that killed CPM/86, as nobody could give a reason why someone should pay so much more than for PC-DOS.