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To: stock bull who wrote (152944)	2/3/2000 12:00:00 PM
From: rudedog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

SB - In 1976, I helped develop a lab for my engineering college - we ordered 10 of the MITS computers - only got 2, and those did not have all of the parts - eventually got 3 more - the RAM boards did not work and we had to debug them. There was a design flaw, they could never have worked. MITS couldn't get them to work either. We told them what was wrong with the design... Eventually added a paper tape reader. We then ordered BASIC from an outfit that MITS recommended - "Micro-Soft". The BASIC was pretty good but we wanted it to use the paper tape reader so I sent a letter to "Micro-Soft" in Albuquerque. I got a nice response from a guy named Paul Allen who said he was pretty busy but if we sent him our bootstrap paper tape reader he would see what he could do. We got a revised version of BASIC about a week later... A few months after that we got a letter from Bill Gates asking if they could use the paper tape stuff in the standard version and enclosing a simple release form... it looked to me like Gates made up the release himself, it was not too legal... I think "Micro-Soft" had about 5 people at that time. Just a minor footnote...