Kildall & Kramer

Kildall and Kramer are two extraordinary men who forever changed all our lifes. We use their software, designs and ingenuity on a daily basis without ever realizing it. You see, if the title of this post had read "Gates & Jobs," you would have known immediately what I am talking about. So read on to learn why there's a hand, a cookie and a dog in today's cover-image...

_{source: Max Pixel}

Where would we be without Microsoft and Apple? Maybe we would all be using Linux now on our personal computers too; Linux already drives most of the internet, mobile phones use Linux as the heart of the Android operating system, and it's the core of much software that runs your daily home appliances, like remote controls, dishwashers, microwave ovens, routers (pfsense!), smart TV's, smartwatches and it even runs the Large Hadron Collider. But yeah, Linux hasn't won the popularity contest with the average consumer; most of us use Windows and Apple iOS, and so it is Gates and Jobs who have become figureheads of the meritocracy.

The problem is that neither Gates or Jobs are the geniuses that gave us the revolutionary soft- and hardware that went viral all over the globe, making them both enough money to solve the world inequality problem in one fell swoop. Actually we could add Steve Wozniak to the title of the post, but I figured his story is well known in our circles, my dear crypto brothers and sisters. Just to recap; Wozniac co-founded Apple inc. with Jobs in 1976, and he was the genius of the two who built the Apple 1 computer. Watch the video below to hear the exciting story of how Apple was the brave rebel, the David who took on Microsoft's Goliath:

_{Steve Wozniak On Steve Jobs, Apple's Early Days}

After the Apple II computer the company operated very much in the shadow of Microsoft, as Gates had struck a golden deal with IBM computers to have their MS DOS operating system delivered with every IBM PC sold. Gates was hawkish enough to construct the deal in a way so that IBM thought is was an exclusive deal, but MS DOS was delivered with computers built by any manufacturer. MS DOS later evolved into Windows, the point and click user interface that made the Apple computers so popular and easy to use; these hawks don't shy away from stealing each other's ideas either.

The CP/M operating system was made by Gary Kildall and was stolen by Gates who then offered a slightly adjusted version under the name MS DOS to IBM. Kildall started his own company called Digital Research; anyone remember DR DOS? Well, now you know what the DR stands for ;-) All this I already knew, but there's a lot more to this tragic story of how the meritocracy is but a facade, an image dangled before us by the plutocracy to justify the status quo:

_{The Man Who COULD Have Been Bill Gates [Gary Kildall]}

Here's how to visualize the meritocracy as it actually functions; first imagine a dog. That's us, we are the dog. Then imagine a man holding up a cookie for the dog to jump at. The man is the plutocracy and the cookie is the promise that if you work hard, develop your talents and contribute to society in a meaningful way, you will be rewarded for your efforts; the cookie is the promise of the meritocracy. Now, as the dog jumps, the hand quickly goes a bit higher. So the dog jumps a bit higher, just for the hand to repeat the previous move... Dogs aren't dumb, so after a while it stops trying and just sits there, staring lustfully at the cookie. So the man breaks off a little piece of the cookie and throws it on the ground; the dog gratefully devours the crumb and is incentivized to start the process anew... No insult is intended toward anyone, not even to our four-legged friends, but as I see it, we are the dog in this not so fictional scenario. Maybe it's time to bite the hand that pretends to feed us...

Anyhow, does anyone remember what gave Apple it's second breath? The iPhone is a good guess, but it's actually the thing that later became the iPhone: the iPod MP3 player. Somehow if you ask people what the first MP3 player was, most will answer the 2001 iPod, but the story begins back in 1979 with Kane Kramer who invented and in 1981 patented the first digital audio-player, the IXI. One of his early investors was Sir Paul McCartney! However, in 1988 a boardroom dispute within Kramer's company and the subsequent failure to raise the 60,000 pounds required to renew the patent resulted in the patent lapsing and entering the public domain, though Kramer is still the owner of the designs.

Before the iPod, many more MP3 players saw the light of day, like the MP Man (Sony's Walkman was the mobile audio choice of the masses back then; we all played audio cassettes) and the Diamond Rio Digital Music Players, but it wasn't until the iPod hit the markets in 2001 when the device became popular. This is a testament to Steve Jobs' real talents: design and marketing. The iPod was extremely user friendly due to it's slick user-interface and was aesthetically pleasing. The iPod was often called "an iPhone without the phone," but only after 2007 as that was when the first iPhone was introduced. Kramer was later acknowledged as the inventor, but didn't get any royalties; watch this final video to hear the full story about the birth of the iPod, and how Kramer was rewarded a free iPod by Apple for his efforts...:

_{The Strange Story of the Mp3 Player}

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