$100,000 Prize If You Can Find This Secret Command in DOS

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4 points·Zuider··2 comments

> Zeidman did find that at least 22 system calls, the commands used to request an action, like sending text to a printer or reading from a hard disk, had the same function number and function.

He "found" this? Bad reporting I think, because the API-level compatibility with CP/M was a well-known feature at the time, and was used to quickly port WordStar, for example.

Poor reporting, or more likely, poor editing. The article has been compressed to the point where it fails to convey important distinctions clearly.

It takes some attentive re-reading to discover that the presence of identical system calls is not being put forward as evidence that Microsoft copied the source code for CP/M. Instead it discusses the possibility that Kildall could have had a copyright claim similar to Oracle's case against Google.

The article should have stated clearly from the outset that Zeidman is so confident that he has proven that Bill Gates did not copy any source code from CP/M that he is prepared to offer a large bounty to anyone who can demonstrate the opposite.

The real news here is the size of the bounty, $100,000. I suspect that Ziedman's case is sound, and that it would be a waste of time to take him up on his offer even if the prize were increased by several orders of magnitude (unless one did it strictly for fun and education).

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