I can give you the names of a handful of books that might be useful. Some are more technical, some less so. Some are more about personalities, some about the business aspects of things, some more about the actual technology. I don't really have time to try and categorize them all, so here's a big dump of the ones I have and/or am familiar with that seem at least somewhat related.

The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering - https://www.amazon.com/Mythical-Man-Month-Software-Engineeri...

Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution - https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Computer-Revolution-Steven-Le...

The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage - https://www.amazon.com/Cuckoos-Egg-Tracking-Computer-Espiona...

Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet - https://www.amazon.com/Where-Wizards-Stay-Up-Late/dp/0684832...

Open: How Compaq Ended IBM's PC Domination and Helped Invent Modern Computing - https://www.amazon.com/Open-Compaq-Domination-Helped-Computi...

Decline and Fall of the American Programmer - https://www.amazon.com/Decline-American-Programmer-Yourdon-1...

Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer - https://www.amazon.com/dp/013121831X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&key...

Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date - https://www.amazon.com/Robert-X-Cringely/dp/0887308554/ref=s...

Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle - https://www.amazon.com/Softwar-Intimate-Portrait-Ellison-Ora...

Winners, Losers & Microsoft - https://www.amazon.com/Winners-Losers-Microsoft-Competition-...

Microsoft Secrets - https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Secrets-audiobook/dp/B019G2...

The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture - https://www.amazon.com/The-Friendly-Orange-Glow-audiobook/dp...

Troublemakers: Silicon Valley's Coming of Age - https://www.amazon.com/Troublemakers-Silicon-Valleys-Coming-...

Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire - https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Drive-Making-Microsoft-Empire/dp...

Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture - https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Doom-Created-Transformed-Cult...

The Supermen: The Story of Seymour Cray and The Technical Wizards Behind the Supercomputer - https://www.amazon.com/Supermen-Seymour-Technical-Wizards-Su...

Bitwise: A Life in Code - https://www.amazon.com/Bitwise-Life-Code-David-Auerbach/dp/1...

Gates - https://www.amazon.com/Gates-Microsofts-Reinvented-Industry-...

We Are The Nerds - https://www.amazon.com/We-Are-Nerds-audiobook/dp/B07H5Q5JGS/...

A People's History of Computing In The United States - https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-Computing-United-Stat...

Fire In The Valley: The Birth and Death of the Personal Computer - https://www.amazon.com/Fire-in-Valley-audiobook/dp/B071YYZJG...

How The Internet Happened: From Netscape to the iPhone - https://www.amazon.com/How-Internet-Happened-Netscape-iPhone...

Steve Jobs - https://www.amazon.com/Steve-Jobs-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1451648...

The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation - https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Factory-Great-American-Innovatio...

Coders - https://www.amazon.com/Coders-Making-Tribe-Remaking-World/dp...

Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software - https://www.amazon.com/Dreaming-in-Code-Scott-Rosenberg-audi...

The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency - https://www.amazon.com/Pentagons-Brain-Uncensored-Americas-T...

The Imagineers of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, the Pentagon Agency That Changed the World - https://www.amazon.com/Imagineers-War-Untold-Pentagon-Change...

The Technical and Social History of Software Engineering - https://www.amazon.com/Technical-Social-History-Software-Eng...

Also...

"The Mother of All Demos" by Doug Englebart - https://youtu.be/yJDv-zdhzMY

"Jobs vs Gates" - https://www.amazon.com/Jobs-Vs-Gates-Hippie-Nerd/dp/B077KB96...

"Welcome to Macintosh" - https://www.amazon.com/Welcome-Macintosh-Guy-Kawasaki/dp/B00...

"Pirates of Silicon Valley" - https://www.amazon.com/Pirates-Silicon-Valley-Noah-Wyle/dp/B...

"Jobs" - https://www.amazon.com/Jobs-Ashton-Kutcher/dp/B00GME2NCG/ref...

And while not a documentary, or meant to be totally historically accurate, the TV show "Halt and Catch Fire" captures a lot of the feel of the early days of the PC era, through to the advent of the Internet era.

https://www.amazon.com/I-O/dp/B00KCXJCEK/ref=sr_1_1?crid=U6Z...

And there's a ton of Macintosh history stuff captured at:

https://www.folklore.org/

I believe you!

Some more context: In "Computer Chronicles" memorial episode, they too did not know who set the high price.

I remember coming upon a website of someone in the industry that asked Gary Kildall, "Who set the high price?". Gary said it was him.

I don't know if the page is up. I also don't know how to find it. I'm betting it's somewhere in the Internet Archive.

Even before OSes, Gates would argue with Allen: "If we give away our programming language for free, we will have high market share!" Allen would reply, "We would also go broke." Source: Andrews and Manes' "Gates": http://www.amazon.com/Gates-Microsofts-Reinvented-Industry-H...

Grabbing market share, low prices... combined w/ Scott Oki's strategic thinking (barriers of entry, legal contracts as competitive tool, from book "Microsoft Generation" http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-First-Generation-Library-Edi...), and MSFT's motto, "We set the standard", it would make sense that MSFT would do it's best to price the OS as low as possible for long-term gain.

Also, there was a Pascal-based OS, but most people forget about that one.

Three I'm familiar with, all recommended:

'Gates', Stephen Manes [1]

'Show Stopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft', G.P. Zachary [2]

'Microsoft in the Mirror', Karin Carter [3]

But I agree with the parent that 'Programmers At Work' is a great book.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Gates-Microsofts-Reinvented-Industry-H...

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Show-Stopper-Breakneck-Generation-Micr...

[3] http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Mirror-Nineteen-Insiders-Exp...

There was one excellent biography of Bill quite some time ago. The part I could verify personally (and there was a lot) was almost all correct, and whatever the exceptions were weren't bad enough for me to recall them now.

I don't see it on my shelf now, but I think it was http://www.amazon.com/Gates-Microsofts-Reinvented-Industry-H... The cover looks familiar, the year is about right, and I have a vague memory of the author being named "Steven".