Who invented DOS?

[Tom Jennings]

On Fri, 4 Mar 2005, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote:

> I'm not asking, but others are: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/03/msdos_paternity_dispute/

Egad, how depressing and embarrassing. And only $75K?!

I don't see why "slapdash" as a criticism lessens it's value.
86DOS *was* "slapdash", but so what? I think Microsoft would call
it "fast to market". They bought it anyways, huh.  Patterson's
code tended towards onelonghugesourcewithnocomments but he was a
good programmer and 86DOS was significant.

Why do things always turn out like this. Please, don't answer :-)