Bill Gates

Want to read the rest of this paper? Join Essayworld today to view this entire essay and over 50,000 other term papers

time. It was a program that scheduled classes for students. "I surreptitiously added a few instructions and found myself nearly the only guy in a class full of girls"(Gates 12). In 1972 Intel released their first microprocessor chip: the 8008. Gates attempted to write a version of BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) for the new Intel chip, but the chip did not contain enough transistors to handle it. Gates and Allen found a way to use the 8008 and "started Traf-O-Data, a computer traffic analysis company"(Clayton 452) It worked well however, marketing their new machine proved to be impossible. "No one actually wanted to buy the machine, at least not from a couple teenagers"(Gates 14). Gates and Allen had more less successful endeavors in starting a software company. In 1974 Intel announced their new chip: the 8080. The two college students sent off letters "to all the big computer companies, offering to write them a version of BASIC for the new Intel chip. We ...

Get instant access to over 50,000 essays. Write better papers. Get better grades. Already a member? Login

wanted to release the first personal computer in less than a year. "IBM had elected to build its PC mainly from off-the-shelf components available to anyone. This made a platform that was fundamentally open, which made it easy to copy"(Gates 47). IBM bought the microprocessors from Intel and licensed the operating system from Microsoft. Microsoft bought some work from another company in Seattle and hired its top engineer, Tim Paterson. The system became known as the Microsoft Disk Operating System, or MS-DOS. Now because of the licensing agreement between IBM and Microsoft, IBM had no control over Microsoft's distribution of its MS-DOS to other companies who wanted to clone the IBM ...

Succeed in your coursework without stepping into a library. Get access to a growing library of notes, book reports, and research papers in 2 minutes or less.

CITE THIS PAGE: