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Birth of Gates
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Invention of Microsoft
Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in New Mexico. It had has made a huge impact on the internet and world today. Its current best-selling products are the Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software. -
Commercialising the operating system
Microsoft inked a landmark deal with IBM to produce an operating system for its up-and-coming personal computer (PC). Microsoft bought 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products, a Disk Operating System designed for 8086-based computers.
It used the 86-DOS code as the basis for IBM's first PC OS, which became known as PC-DOS. When clones of IBM's PC started to appear, Microsoft pushed their own version of PC-DOS, MS-DOS, to system builders. -
Inspiring the era of the home computer
Bill Gates and his school friend Paul Allen learnt the BASIC programming language whilst studying at Lakeside School in Seattle. BASIC sparked the home computing boom of the 1980s, appearing on the IBM PC, Commodore VIC-20, BBC Micro and the Apple II -
Launching Windows 95
Windows 95 was arguably the game-changer. The original Windows 1.0 OS was a effectively a graphical version of MS-DOS, born to compete against the GUI on Apple's 'Lisa'. In comparison, Windows 95 was designed to replace MS-DOS and enabled revolutionary features such as multi-tasking and Plug and Play. -
Becoming the richest man in the world
According to Wikipedia, Bill Gates was worth more than $101 billion in 1999; while Wired reports that, when Microsoft stock hit a high in 1996, Gates was earning $30 million a day.
