Brief History Of Linux (#15)
Too many hyphens: Traf-O-Data and Micro-soft
Bill Gates and Paul Allen attended an exclusive private school in Seattle.
In 1968, after raising $3,000 from a yard sale, they gained access to a
timeshare computer and became addicted. After depleting their money
learning BASIC and playing Solitaire, they convinced a company to give
them free computer time in exchange for reporting bugs -- ironically, an
early form of Open Source development!
The two then founded a small company called Traf-O-Data that collected and
analyzed traffic counts for municipalities using a crude device based on
the Intel "Pretanium" 8008 CPU. They had some success at first, but ran
into problems when they were unable to deliver their much hyped
next-generation device called "TrafficX". An engineer is quoted as saying
that "Traf-O-Data is the local leader in vaporware", the first documented
usage of the term that has come to be synonymous with Bill Gates.
Soon thereafter, the two developed their own BASIC interpreter, and sold
it to MITS for their new Altair computer. April 4, 1975 is the fateful day
that Micro-soft was founded in Albuquerque, NM as a language vendor.
Too many hyphens: Traf-O-Data and Micro-soft
Bill Gates and Paul Allen attended an exclusive private school in Seattle.
In 1968, after raising $3,000 from a yard sale, they gained access to a
timeshare computer and became addicted. After depleting their money
learning BASIC and playing Solitaire, they convinced a company to give
them free computer time in exchange for reporting bugs -- ironically, an
early form of Open Source development!
The two then founded a small company called Traf-O-Data that collected and
analyzed traffic counts for municipalities using a crude device based on
the Intel "Pretanium" 8008 CPU. They had some success at first, but ran
into problems when they were unable to deliver their much hyped
next-generation device called "TrafficX". An engineer is quoted as saying
that "Traf-O-Data is the local leader in vaporware", the first documented
usage of the term that has come to be synonymous with Bill Gates.
Soon thereafter, the two developed their own BASIC interpreter, and sold
it to MITS for their new Altair computer. April 4, 1975 is the fateful day
that Micro-soft was founded in Albuquerque, NM as a language vendor.
Related:
- Brief History Of Linux (#16)
Closed source, opened wallets
In 1976 Bill Gates wrote the famous letter to Altair hobbyists accusing
them of "stealing software" and "preventing good software from being
written".
We must assume Bill's statement was true, because no... - bug n.
An unwanted and unintended property of a program or
piece of hardware,
esp. one that causes it to malfunction. Antonym... - Brief History Of Linux (#17)
If only Gary had been sober
When Micro-soft moved to Seattle in 1979,
most of its revenue came from sales of BASIC, a horrible... - Brief History Of Linux (#18)
The rise and rise of the Microsoft Empire
The DOS and Windows releases kept coming,
and much to everyone's surprise, Microsoft became more... - Brief History Of Linux (#20)
Linux is born
Linus' superhuman programming talent produced,
within a year, a full operating system that rivaled... - Brief History Of Linux (#12)
A note from Bill Gates' second grade teacher:
Billy has been having some trouble behaving in class... - Microsoft Open Source Solitaire
REDMOND, WA -- In a first attempt at "embrace-and-extend" of open source
software,
Microsoft will release its popular Solitaire and FreeCell... - Brief History Of Linux (#27)
Microsoft's position as the 5,000 pound gorilla of the computer industry
didn't change during the 1990's.
Indeed, this gorilla got even more bloated with every... - DDT /D-D-T/ n.
[from the insecticide
para-dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethene] 1.
Generic term for a program that assists in debugging...
