"It's the story of why the 16-bit version of Digital Research CP/M was late, but the delayed arrival of this now-obscure OS is what catalyzed the development of a different, but source-level compatible, OS. That OS started Microsoft on its way to its current $3.5 trillion capitalization, and is also what led to the development of OS/2, Windows, and indirectly Linux."
"The CP/M-86 User Guide [PDF] bears a copyright year of 1981. The problem is it was designed for Intel's 8086 processor, and that shipped in 1978 - followed a year later by the budget model, the cut-down Intel 8088. In other words, the new edition of CP-M arrived about three years late. Its target, the 8086, was the exciting new 16-bit successor to the Intel 8080. As Intel's own page says:"
CP/M-86 arrived significantly after the Intel 8086 and 8088 processors reached the market, with a 1981 copyright despite the 8086 shipping in 1978 and the 8088 in 1979. That roughly three-year delay weakened CP/M's dominance just as 16-bit business microcomputers were emerging. The timing opened the door for a different, source-level compatible operating system supplied by Microsoft, which helped launch Microsoft's major growth and contributed to the later development of OS/2 and Windows while indirectly influencing Linux. CP/M had dominated business machines that required floppy disks, while inexpensive home systems used ROM-based BASIC.
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