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LazerBomb
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This is the part one of my articles about how Microsoft came about. If you would like a part 2, let me know in the replies.
Also, as this is my first article, if you see any errors, please let me know. It would be appreciated.
Before we begin, I would like to ask for you to mark this as helpful if this educated you.
Cheers! Let's get into it...
The Start
Like with most other large companies, Microsoft started with humble beginnings.
It started with a couple of teenagers in high school.
Read on to learn the history behind Microsoft...
The Beginning 1968
Lakeside School (Seattle)
4 Teenagers were interested in their school’s new computers (Teletype model 33)
On the Teletype, you were able to play games like tic-tac-toe, but also able to create computer programs and tools. The issue was that to use the Teletype you had to pay rent of $40 per hour, which was quite pricy (around $300 now 2021), Instead of paying the $40 per hour, the students decided to exploit some bugs in the computer system to allow them to use it for free. This was working fine, and they were able to program all they wanted for a while until the Computer Centre Corporation caught them stealing computer usage time and banned them from using it.
The banned students were: Kent Evans, Ric Weilan, Paul Allen and the man we all know, Bill Gates.
Soon after they were banned, they decided to form their own group called the Lakeside programmers club to make some money from their programming ability, while helping companies patch bugs in their computer systems. The first company that hired them was the Computer Centre Corporation, yes, the same company that blocked them the previous year from using their computer systems.
Traf-o-Data
Several years later, 17-Year-old Bill Gates and 19-Year-old Paul Allen started a new venture together called Traf-o-Data which use the newest traffic data into comprehensive easy to read reports. The business did not last very long, as Bill Gates left to go to Harvard University to enrol in a pre-law program. Paul Allen also left to go to Washington State University to pursue a Computer Science Degree.
ALTAIR 8800
1975 – Popular Electronics magazine featured the “World’s First Minicomputer Kit to Rival Commercial Models”. This device was the ALTAIR 8800. This was the 1st successful commercial personal computer. Paul Allen and Bill gates caught a glimpse of the ALTAIR issue of the electronics’ Magazine so the two called and suggested creating a basic programming language interpreter for the computer. Soon after, they ended up talking to the inventors of the ALTAIR 8800 who were MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems). Bill Gates and Paul Allen claimed to have a working interpreter for the computer ready to go. (This was not true; it was not ready). MITS was very interested and wanted this interpreter. Bill Gates immediately started working on the interpreter while Paul Allen started working on the simulator for it. On the way to present their product to the MITS, the boot-up system for the interpreter was not ready so the last bit of code was written on the way to the meeting. By the time they were in the meeting with MITS they still had not run a full test of the interpreter, they had just built.
During the meeting, they ran the interpreter for the first time, and it ran perfectly. After the meeting, MITS agreed to sell their interpreter as Alter Basic. Little did the two students know, this would be the first product created by their newly named company called Micro Computer Software, known today as Microsoft.
Over the next couple of years, the success of the Alter Basic made Microsoft a Multi-Million-dollar company.
In 1980, Microsoft’s revenue was nearing $30 Million when they decided to open their own international office in Japan. A year later, Bill and Allen started negotiating with the giant tech company IBM to try and make Microsoft the main Operating system on their new computer. Both sides agreed to a deal, but Bill Gates and Paul Allen did not have an Operating system before making the deal. So, what they ended up doing, was buying out a standard operating system from a tech company called “Seattle Computer Products”. The operating system cost $75,000 and they promised to pay a small royalty to the company as well. This operating system was firstly called 86-DOS which was quickly renamed by Microsoft to MS-DOS.
A year later (1881)
IBM launched its personal computer; it became an immediate success. This made MS-DOS the dominant OS in the world. Microsoft did not only licence the OS to IBM, but they also licenced it to over 70 other computer companies including Compact Computers. The only computer company that did not use their operating system (MS-DOS) was another startup medium-sized company, Apple inc.
1983
In 1983, just as Microsoft passed 1 Million installs of MS-DOS Paul Allen was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and decided to leave the company. At the time, Bill Gates thought that Paul’s stock in Microsoft should be diluted at the time as he was no longer contributing to the company. But Bill didn’t have time to concentrate on things outside of the company as the company was working on a word processing application called Word, a spreadsheet application called Excel and a GUI (Graphical User Interface) called windows.
Also, in 1983, Apple was the only company with a GUI, so Microsoft knew they had to make their own.
A few years later, Microsoft released their own GUI Windows 1.0, to compete with apples OS.
Microsoft thought they had enough individual software products to launch a package of apps, this was called Microsoft Works, known today as Microsoft Office. This was the first application that you could use on a variety of different computers, like Apple computers.
Continue reading...
Also, as this is my first article, if you see any errors, please let me know. It would be appreciated.
Before we begin, I would like to ask for you to mark this as helpful if this educated you.
Cheers! Let's get into it...
The Start
Like with most other large companies, Microsoft started with humble beginnings.
It started with a couple of teenagers in high school.
Read on to learn the history behind Microsoft...
The Beginning 1968
Lakeside School (Seattle)
4 Teenagers were interested in their school’s new computers (Teletype model 33)
On the Teletype, you were able to play games like tic-tac-toe, but also able to create computer programs and tools. The issue was that to use the Teletype you had to pay rent of $40 per hour, which was quite pricy (around $300 now 2021), Instead of paying the $40 per hour, the students decided to exploit some bugs in the computer system to allow them to use it for free. This was working fine, and they were able to program all they wanted for a while until the Computer Centre Corporation caught them stealing computer usage time and banned them from using it.
The banned students were: Kent Evans, Ric Weilan, Paul Allen and the man we all know, Bill Gates.
Soon after they were banned, they decided to form their own group called the Lakeside programmers club to make some money from their programming ability, while helping companies patch bugs in their computer systems. The first company that hired them was the Computer Centre Corporation, yes, the same company that blocked them the previous year from using their computer systems.
Traf-o-Data
Several years later, 17-Year-old Bill Gates and 19-Year-old Paul Allen started a new venture together called Traf-o-Data which use the newest traffic data into comprehensive easy to read reports. The business did not last very long, as Bill Gates left to go to Harvard University to enrol in a pre-law program. Paul Allen also left to go to Washington State University to pursue a Computer Science Degree.
ALTAIR 8800
1975 – Popular Electronics magazine featured the “World’s First Minicomputer Kit to Rival Commercial Models”. This device was the ALTAIR 8800. This was the 1st successful commercial personal computer. Paul Allen and Bill gates caught a glimpse of the ALTAIR issue of the electronics’ Magazine so the two called and suggested creating a basic programming language interpreter for the computer. Soon after, they ended up talking to the inventors of the ALTAIR 8800 who were MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems). Bill Gates and Paul Allen claimed to have a working interpreter for the computer ready to go. (This was not true; it was not ready). MITS was very interested and wanted this interpreter. Bill Gates immediately started working on the interpreter while Paul Allen started working on the simulator for it. On the way to present their product to the MITS, the boot-up system for the interpreter was not ready so the last bit of code was written on the way to the meeting. By the time they were in the meeting with MITS they still had not run a full test of the interpreter, they had just built.
During the meeting, they ran the interpreter for the first time, and it ran perfectly. After the meeting, MITS agreed to sell their interpreter as Alter Basic. Little did the two students know, this would be the first product created by their newly named company called Micro Computer Software, known today as Microsoft.
Over the next couple of years, the success of the Alter Basic made Microsoft a Multi-Million-dollar company.
In 1980, Microsoft’s revenue was nearing $30 Million when they decided to open their own international office in Japan. A year later, Bill and Allen started negotiating with the giant tech company IBM to try and make Microsoft the main Operating system on their new computer. Both sides agreed to a deal, but Bill Gates and Paul Allen did not have an Operating system before making the deal. So, what they ended up doing, was buying out a standard operating system from a tech company called “Seattle Computer Products”. The operating system cost $75,000 and they promised to pay a small royalty to the company as well. This operating system was firstly called 86-DOS which was quickly renamed by Microsoft to MS-DOS.
A year later (1881)
IBM launched its personal computer; it became an immediate success. This made MS-DOS the dominant OS in the world. Microsoft did not only licence the OS to IBM, but they also licenced it to over 70 other computer companies including Compact Computers. The only computer company that did not use their operating system (MS-DOS) was another startup medium-sized company, Apple inc.
1983
In 1983, just as Microsoft passed 1 Million installs of MS-DOS Paul Allen was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and decided to leave the company. At the time, Bill Gates thought that Paul’s stock in Microsoft should be diluted at the time as he was no longer contributing to the company. But Bill didn’t have time to concentrate on things outside of the company as the company was working on a word processing application called Word, a spreadsheet application called Excel and a GUI (Graphical User Interface) called windows.
Also, in 1983, Apple was the only company with a GUI, so Microsoft knew they had to make their own.
A few years later, Microsoft released their own GUI Windows 1.0, to compete with apples OS.
Microsoft thought they had enough individual software products to launch a package of apps, this was called Microsoft Works, known today as Microsoft Office. This was the first application that you could use on a variety of different computers, like Apple computers.
Continue reading...