Microsoft founder Bill Gates still fondly remembers the computer code he wrote 50 years ago that opened up a new frontier in technology. Although the code Gates printed out on a teletype machine may look crude compared to today’s artificial intelligence platforms, it played a critical role in creating Microsoft in April 1975.
Gates, 69, reflected on this period in a recent blog post, recalling how he and his late high school friend Paul Allen scrambled to create the world’s first ‘software factory’ after reading about the Altair 8800 minicomputer in the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics magazine. The article inspired Gates, then a Harvard freshman, and Allen to contact Altair’s maker, Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems, and promise they had developed software to control the hardware – even though they hadn’t yet written the code.
Gates and Allen built upon the BASIC computer language developed at Dartmouth College in 1964, adapting it for the Altair computer. After two months of work with little sleep, Gates finished the code that became the basis for the Altair’s first operating system. ‘That code remains the coolest I’ve ever written,’ Gates stated in his blog post, which includes an option to download the original program.
The code laid the foundation for Microsoft’s future success, including software like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, as well as the Windows operating system. ‘That was the revolution,’ Gates said in a video accompanying his post. ‘That was the thing that ushered in personal computing.’
Gates’ nostalgia is part of a year-long reflection as he prepares to turn 70. This includes the release of a memoir about his early years and celebrating the 25th anniversary of the philanthropic foundation he created after stepping down as Microsoft’s CEO in 2000. Microsoft has thrived under CEO Satya Nadella since Gates’ departure, reaching a market value of about $2.8 trillion.
‘Fifty years is a long time,’ Gates said. ‘It’s crazy that the dream came true.’
