| MARKS OF ESTEEM
History
of the Microcomputer Revolution
The
Washington State Connection
In
1968 a mother's group at a private Seattle High School-
Lakeside School - decided to raise money for a mathematics
class project. They wanted to give their children access to
the fast-emerging technology of computers, and with the $3,000
they raised they arranged to buy some time on a computer for
the math class. This was a common situation called time-sharing.
The school installed an old teletype machine hooked up to
a telephone, and they were able to access a DEC Minicomputer
owned by General Electric located in downtown Seattle. The
school dialed into this computer at a scheduled time, and
they were charged for their usage.
2
of the gifted students in this math class became instantly
obsessed with this amazing concept of being able
to dial in to a computer located miles away, type in commands,
and have the computer instantly type back the answer, right
there in their classroom. The younger student, an 8th grader,
was a boy named Bill Gates, and his friend
- 2 years his senior - was a boy named Paul Allen.
In an instant 2 math class nerds turned into 2 computer nerds.
They began learning how to program the computer - make it
follow their instructions - in a computer language named BASIC
which had been developed at Dartmouth College in 1964. BASIC
stood for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.
The boys quickly mastered this language, and began delving
deeper in the computer; getting their hands on any manuals
they could find. They quickly knew more than their instructor
and most of the people in charge of this computer.
Computers
became such a passion in their lives that they quickly depleted
the $ 3,000 the mothers had raised for the project, but another
door opened for them when another private computer time-sharing
company named Computer Center Corporation offered the school
a similar agreement. This company had been founded by UW graduates
and was located in Seattle's University district, much closer
to the boy's homes.
The
company immediately realized that these whiz kids could be
useful to them by detecting problems in the company's software,
and began giving them free computer time on the company's
DEC PDP-10 computer in exchange for the kid's finding
bugs in the programs that caused crashes. The boys would make
notes in a log of what they had done to cause a program to
crash, and the company's programmers would fix the problem.
The boys also began to learn about the DEC computer's operating
system. Free computer time was absolute heaven to them, and
they came in contact with many interesting and talented people.
One was a programmer named Gary Kildall who would later play
an important part in their future.
Computer
Center Corporation unfortunately went bankrupt in 1970, causing
the boys to lose their free computer access, although by this
time their expertise was well known enough to provide other
computer time opportunities they were able to hustle up for
themselves. They also got valuable experience with different
languages and operating systems.
Bill
Gates continued his studies to ready himself to attend Harvard,
and his friend Paul Allen planned to enroll at Washington
State University for the Fall quarter of 1971. Paul was an
avid reader of electronic magazines, and the Announcement
of the Intel 4004 caught his eye. We'll hear about this next
week.
History
of the Microcomputer Revolution
The Historic Background
The
Revolution Begins
The
Washington State Connection
High
School Kid's Computer Company
The
World's First Commercially Available PC
What
good is a computer without Software?
Send
in the Clones
The
First Operating System Standard
Home
Brewing and Computers Named Apple
The
Killer Application
IBM's
Secret
The
Deal of The Century
A
Walk in the PARC
Send
in the Clones again - Freud would have said GUI-Envy
The
PC Industry at Age 11 in 1986
Will
the Circle Be Unbroken?
Bibliography
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