Brain Teaser!

[billy_gates]

Has Microsoft EVER Actually Invented Something

[jtpenrod]

Before His Gatesness came along, software was universally considered to be information. Information to be shared, put up for peer review, to be modified and improved. Macro$uck succeeded in turning it into a commodity. This was, and remains, their only innovation.

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Live Free or Die: UNIX

[Calum]

weren't they responsible for BASIC? or is this another ripoff from somebody else? (i suspect this to be a silly question, now that i read it again, but still, i'll post it anyway...)

[jtpenrod]

quote: weren't they responsible for BASIC?

BASIC (Beginner's All purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) was created in 1963 by John Kennedy and Tom Kurtz. What they did was to take the simplest features of Fortran and Algol to create an easy to learn programming language that would allow students to "get their feet wet" before moving on to a "real" language. Macro$uck certainly didn't develop BASIC. What Gates did, however, was to develop an interpreter for the MITS Altair computer in 1975 or 1976. It proved quite popular as, up till then, the only way to program an Altair was via a set of toggle switches on the panel. It was also this interpreter that started His Gatesness on his crusade against "piracy" and the resulting paranoia that led to that abomination: WPA. (Although that certainly didn't instill in His Gatesness any qualms over pirating whatever software and technologies he could lay his hands upon.    ) The Altair BASIC interpreter was the first piece of software that was comoditized. Hence, M$'s one and only true innovation.

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Live Free or Die: UNIX

[ December 23, 2001: Message edited by: jtpenrod ]