Bill Gates, the single richest man alive. Yet he his days that started as a hacker where not always glorious, the way that he rode up to the top doing what he does best (hacking) make him a very interesting person to learn about. Today Bill Gates gives generously to the population and is nothing short of a great man. He used a lot of Homo Faber in his work, as he and his best friend (Paul Allen, Co-Founder of Microsoft) created many programs during there free time and created a BASIC program for one of the first P. C. ‘s, which helped Bill Gates start Microsoft in 1976.
Also more apparent today is Health and Social. Microsoft is the biggest program writing company there is, there products include the famous “Windows” Operating Systems, and MSN Messenger. Through those systems, people from all over the world interact and “chat” together. But the use of Microsoft programs is not limited to home use, as many businesses use the systems for professional uses. How It Started Bill Gates Was born in 1965 to a family with a rich background. In elementary school, he was exceptional in all subjects, but was extremely good in Mathematics and sciences.
His parents saw his gift and enrolled him n Lakeside Private School. It is there that he fist made contact with computers. Bill Gates immediately began an addiction to the computer. Within a few weeks his knowledge of computing excelled that of his Computer teacher. He and a couple of his classmates stayed on the computer for long periods of time, often extending into the night, writing diverse programs. They would also skip classes and stop doing there homework just to be on the machine. The school had to buy computer time in order for students to go on it.
But since Bill and his friends strayed a lot of time on the machine, at he end of just a couple of weeks, they had used up all the time on it. They used up several thousand dollars that was meant for the entire year. Having used up all of the time, a new company “Computer Center Corporation” opened in Seattle and one of the programmers who worked had a kid who attended Lakeside. So the company gave them computer time at good rates. But Bill and his friends started to cause the computer to crash, break through the CCC’s security system and alter the amount of Computer time has been spent.
It wasn’t long before they where caught and banned from the computer for a month. The CCC started to suffer because of the amount of times there computers crashed and because of there weak security. Since they where impressed by Bill Gates and his friends’ performance at computers they hired him, Paul Allen and two other fellow hackers from school to find bugs and weaknesses in the Company’s systems. But they did not limit themselves to that. They would read any computer related material they could find that the crew had overseen to get ride of, and they would also hassle employees for more info.
It is there that Bill and Paul got the experience they needed to start up Microsoft years later. Lakeside gave Bill the project to computerize the scheduling of the school. It is rumoured that Bill used this program to his own benefit and placed himself in the classes with the most beautiful girls in the school. When Computer Center Cooperation went bankrupt in 1970, the four friends found another way to go on computers. In 1971, Information Sciences Inc. hired them to create a payroll program. There they where paid for the first time, and where given royalties for any programs they made that made money.
A company named TRW heard of there work at the CCC and employed them o not just find bugs in the system, but to actually fix them. This is when Bill became a very serious programmer. This is when Bill Gates and his best friend Paul Allen got the idea to make there own Software Company. Soon came along Traff-O-Data. A company that Bill and Paul started The Company made a small computer which regulated the traffic flow. With that company they made around 20,000$, but it soon closed as Bill Gates left for College. He entered Harvard in 1973 where he enrolled in pre-law, and signed up for the hardest math courses Harvard had to offer.
Yet Ounce again he ost of his nights on the College’s computers. He still remained in close contact with Paul, and two years in College Paul moved closer to him. One December day as Paul was going to visit Bill in his dorm he saw a magazine featuring a new type of computer, the Altair 8800. Paul bought the magazine and him and Bill both agreed that if they where to start a software company it was then, as they foresaw that personal computers where about to sweep in, and they knew that program writing jobs for these computers where going to be wide open.
They contacted Micro Instrumentation nd Telemetry Systems (MITS) and said that they had written a BASIC program (which they did not) for there Altair 8800. Altair, being very interested in the software they thought existed decided they wanted to see it. So for many weeks Bill wrote most of the BASIC program and Paul made a simulation of the 8800 on Harvard’s PDP-10s so the BASIC program could work. Finally the day they presented there program arrived. It was a very nervous time, as the BASIC had never been tested on a real 8800, and if Paul’s simulation was incorrect, then the entire project was good for nothing.
Thankfully for them, it worked. MITS bought the rights to there BASIC program. Within the next year, in 1975, Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard to form the Microsoft Company. In 1981, IBM wanted Microsoft to develop an Operating System (OS) for them. After an agreement, MS – DOS v. 1. 0 was born. After a short while, it dominated the market. The IBM contract helped Microsoft give way to Windows 95, which is, a sort of image enhancement to MS-DOS. Within the first month, the Windows 95 program sold 1 million copies. Within the first two months, it sold seven million copies. There was a trial held between Microsoft and Apple computers.
Apple ccused Microsoft of stealing the “windows” style and icons from Apple. Apple lost, yet went into trial again. This was not good financially for Apple, so Bill gave Steve Jobs 150,000,000$ so the company did not go bankrupt. The accusations against Microsoft where dropped. That is how Bill Gates raised to fame with his software. Proper timing and the major opening of a useful tool needing workers are key parts. Yet knowing what you are doing and being good at it is the most important. Today Bill Gates is worth more then 40 billion dollars. He enjoys sharing his wealth by giving generously to the poor and organisations that need money.