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To: jonkai who wrote (33505)	5/30/2002 8:56:51 PM
From: HerbVic	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 213177

Yes, yes, I see. IBM needed an operating system, preferably one that handles disk I/O since that was about to become popular in a couple of years. Failing to get one from the only man with an operating system gaining momentum with business applications programmers, they (for no apparent reason) turn to two completely unknown gents who's sole claim to fame was the authoring of yet another version of the infinitly generic Beginners All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code interpretive language. Of course, since the IBM guys were from Florida, they figured everyone on the West Coast had already written their own personal operating system, and anyone who could add features to BASIC and manufacture punch cards had to have a good one. Why couldn't I see it? By the way, even if you pick apart the paragraph you linked piece by piece, and take it for the Gospel Truth, there is not one bit of refuting evidence. IBM first contacted Gary Kildall about using his CP/M microcomputer operating system, which Kildall copyrighted in May 1976, for the Acorn. However, Kildall was not interested, so IBM went to Bill Gates. IBM didn't know it, but Microsoft had no operating system to sell them. The devil is in the lack of details. Why did Dr. Kildall turn a cold sholder to IBM? Why did IBM turn to a complete unknown KID, not yet graduated from Harvard? However, earlier in the piece: His interest in computers and software started at an early age when a group of mothers at his boys-only private school in Seattle bought a computer terminal and computer time for the school's students in 1967. That summer, 12-year-old Bill Gates and 14-year-old Paul Allen made $4,200 writing an academic scheduling program for the school. Who do you think wanted their son to become interested in computers? Who supplied the $4,200? Consider if you will, a millionaire's son destined to become a Harvard man. The parents, who didn't get to where they were by playing marbles in the sand, pull every trick in the book to insure the success of their progeny. Their objective: CEO of IBM. Or at least a good job. That's not the story they will tell to the newspapers. The rich don't talk about their backroom deals and good-ole-boy networks. These kinds of details could only be unearthed by political or social insiders. It would have to come from someone, not writing the Bill Gates perspective, but the family perspective, the perspective that saw Bill Gates as that impetuous nasty boy who must be tricked into becoming successful. That book is out there. "Whatever?" "Whatever ... " as you would say. HerbVic

To: jonkai who wrote (33505)	5/30/2002 9:30:40 PM
From: HerbVic	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213177

Incidentally, jonkai, the accuracy of the piece is not well founded. The author says that the boys went to "a boys only private school" Yet in the same paragraph, it says that they rigged the software written for the same school to seat them next to the prettiest girls. It also says that February 1975, Paul Allen met with Ed Roberts, owner of MITS, to demonstrate his and Gates' newly written BASIC for the Altair. Despite never having touched an Altair before, the BASIC worked flawlessly. If you believe that, could I interest you in shares of the Los Angeles Freeway? ... Cheap. Will we ever really know? Bill Gates may not know, but even if he does, I suspect he's not going to show up here to discuss it. I believe his Mother did fix the meeting. It has the ring of truth. HerbVic