Reply to myself: watching that Gary Kildall Special of The Computer Chronicles, there is a segment at 17:10 talking about that incident, presented too by Stewart Cheifet, where Tom Rolander, first DRI employee, tells that he was flying with Kildall that morning for a business trip, then “flew back down and joined the IBM meeting, we were there for the meeting later in the afternoon”.
The first video from which I quoted Cheifet is from 2013, while this last one is from 1995. I have no way of verifying which one is right.
Here is Tom Rolander again, in 2017, in an interview with the Computer History Museum, describing the background between Gary Kildall, Bill Gates, and IBM, and then a very detailed report of the incident, again consistent with his 1995 report: “Oral History of Tom Rolander” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VREZ6Zx_usc&t=5040s
A sibling comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32082362) tells a story consistent with this one.
The first video from which I quoted Cheifet is from 2013, while this last one is from 1995. I have no way of verifying which one is right.
Here is Tom Rolander again, in 2017, in an interview with the Computer History Museum, describing the background between Gary Kildall, Bill Gates, and IBM, and then a very detailed report of the incident, again consistent with his 1995 report: “Oral History of Tom Rolander” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VREZ6Zx_usc&t=5040s