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Microsoft's
story began in December 1974, when Bill Gates and his
friend Paul Allen saw an article in Popular Electronics,
describing a new "personal computer" called
the MITS Altair 8800. The Altair was very different
from the mainframe computers used back then. It was
a build-it-yourself kit for hobbyists. What arrived
in the mail wasn't a fully assembled computer, just
some bags of parts and a set of photocopied instructions.
After a few weeks of soldering, they ended up with a
computer roughly the size of a breadbox, with rows of
switches and blinking lights. It wasn't much to look
at, and it was pretty much impossible to make it do
anything useful. However, they perceived the Altair
to be the start of a revolution that would change the
world.
The "brain" of the Altairthe inexpensive Intel
8080 microprocessormade possible a truly human-scale
computer that could fit on a desk. In those days, when
computers usually lived in air-conditioned glass rooms
surrounded by trained technicians, that was an amazing
achievement.
To
transform that achievement into a breakthrough, Altair
needed software that could make it perform useful computing
tasks. This need set Paul and Bill Gates on the path
to forming their own software company. They knew that
microprocessors would become more powerful and less
expensive, so the cost of computers would come down.
They figured this would bring them within reach of far
more people, from entrepreneurs to students to home
users. And they concluded that this would create a huge
demand for software. They formed a little partnership
called Micro-Soft so they could be a part of this transformation.
Over
the years, the PC has grown from a hobbyist's toy into
an indispensable tool that continues to change the world.
It has revolutionized how people deal with information,
how they communicate, and how they work, learn, and
play. The little company Paul and Bill dreamt about,
sitting around their college dorm room is now the world's
biggest software company, employing almost 40,000 people
in more than 50 countries. From their roots in programming
languages and operating systems, they have ventured
into just about every kind of software you can imagine,
from industrial-strength servers to games.
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