Since computers are such a prevalent and important part of our lives today, it is interesting to look back at their history. One of the major computer software companies is Microsoft. To today's generation, it seems as though Microsoft Windows, XP, Vista, and now Windows 7 have been around forever. Surprisingly, the first computer software came out only 37 years ago.
BASIC was a major breakthrough in the world of
computers in 1975. Shortly after the first personal computer, the Micro
Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) Altair 8800, was introduced, Paul
Allen and Bill Gates attempted to create a personal computer language. Allen was a childhood friend of Gates. They had
seen the Altair computer on the cover of a “Popular Electronics” magazine. The Altair
8800 computer initially came as a build-it-yourself kit. It did very little and
needed software to make it more useful. Gates, who was a 19 year old sophomore at Harvard,
and Allen wanted to use their BASIC software on the Altair. Allen soon went to
work for MITS and Gates created an unofficial partnership with them. In his
first reference to their partnership, Gates called it Micro-Soft. In 1975, the
company had total revenue of only $16,005 and had only a few employees
including Allen and Gates. Even though BASIC was quite an accomplishment, there
was still very little that could be done with the Altair computer. BASIC soon came
out as version 2.0 in both 4K and 8K editions.
From
Microsoft BASIC came MS-DOS, or Microsoft’s Disc Operating System. It was
initially released for IBM’s PC in 1981. MS-DOS was difficult for many users to
use and required them to type in a command which started with “C:.” Luckily,
from MS-DOS came Windows 1.0. Windows 1.0 was much easier to use and
transformed into what many of us use on our computers today! Windows 1.0 was
produced in 1985 and by 1987, Windows 2.0 came out with better graphics and a
control panel. By 1995, Windows 95 was released with the “Start” menu, window
options, and a task bar. In 2011, Windows was in its 36th edition.
Check out this YouTube video in which Bill Gates describes the early days of Microsoft.
Bill Gates started programming computers at only 13 years
of age. Today, at only 56 years old, he ranks 2nd on Forbes list of the
world's billionaires with a net worth of $61 billion. He is ranked 1st
in the United States. In addition, he is ranked as the 5th most powerful
person in the world and is number one on the Forbes 400 list.
Honorably, in addition to bringing in enormous wealth, he is also the
most generous person on the planet. Of his billions, he has given away
over $28 billion in charitable donations. It is comforting to see that
he puts his fortune to good use. Not only has Bill Gates created a
business that has changed our technology forever but he helps the less
fortunate as well.
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