- It's hard to believe now, but the acceptance of Microsoft's DOS as the operating system for the IBM PC wasn't a foregone conclusion when the machine was introduced in 1981.
Initially, since IBM was Microsoft's only operating system customer, Gates and Allen went all-out to make DOS the operating system of choice, urging other software companies to write applications for DOS first and otherwise promoting and cajoling. Within a year the battle was over, DOS ruled the U.S. market for the IBM PC, and the first of what would become a tsunami of PC clones were trickling into the marketplace. 1982: Shortly before Allen was diagnosed as having Hodgkin's disease, he and Gates preached to industry insiders and journalists about their idea for a graphical, "windowing" personal-computer operating system.
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