Chapter 1: Biography of Bill Gates

William Henry Gates III is his real name. He was born in Seattle, Washington, in
1955. He was an American entrepreneur and computer scientist, and founder of
Microsoft. He developed the MS-DOS operating system (1981), which became the
famous Windows 3.1 (1992), and created several versions of this operating
system, which is still used today in most laptop and desktop computers. Bill Gates
came from a wealthy family that educated him at cutting-edge institutions such as
Lakeside School (1967-1973) and Harvard University (1973-1977). His friend Paul
Allen introduced him to the field of computing, establishing a small working group
focused on developing programs that were sold to companies or public entities. In
1975, they moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, with the goal of providing MITS
with a series of programs that ran on the first microcomputer, the Altair, for which
they had created a version of the BASIC programming language. That same year,
they established their own software development company, Microsoft Corporation,
in Albuquerque. In the early 1970s, the creation of the microprocessor facilitated a
decrease in the cost and size of the enormous computers that had existed until
then. In the mid-1970s, in a garage cluttered with oil cans and household goods,
Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak designed and built a printed circuit board, a
showcase of innovation and imagination. At first, they intended to sell only the
motherboard, but they soon became convinced of the merits of founding a
company, Apple, and selling computers. In 1977, they began marketing the second
version of their personal computer, the Apple II, which was sold with an operating
system also created by Apple: a historic milestone marking the birth of personal
computing.

From MS-DOS to Windows

Other options still existed, but they were in the minority: thanks to its low cost, the
combination of PC and MS-DOS ended up conquering the market and becoming
the standard. While computer manufacturers tried to reduce costs, locked in a price
war in which no one could gain a dominant position, a software company, Bill
Gates's, seized virtually the entire operating system market and a good part of the
software market. From that moment on, Microsoft's expansion was spectacular.
And not only because computers needed an operating system to function, but also
because specific programs and applications (a word processor, a spreadsheet, a
game) are developed based on a specific operating system, and that system was
MS-DOS. Different software companies (including Microsoft itself) could develop,
for example, different word processors, competing with each other to please the
user. But since the vast majority of users had MS-DOS, they developed MS-DOS-
compatible programs, and ended up doing Microsoft a favor, which could boast that
every imaginable program could run on its operating system—its own and that of
almost all its competitors. These negative reviews were Microsoft's greatest asset,
and Bill Gates knew how to preserve them. However, MS-DOS was an unfriendly
environment, requiring knowledge of commands entered via the keyboard. With the
launch of the Macintosh personal computer in 1984, Apple seemed to take the lead
again. Its window system represented a qualitative leap; its interface simulated the
layout of a workbench using icons. A small device, the mouse, whose movements
were reflected on the screen by a blinking icon, allowed users to navigate in search
of the desired document or program. Instead of having to remember the
commands for each operation and constantly type them out, all you had to do was
go to the lists of possible actions and click the mouse on the chosen option. In
1983, Paul Allen left Microsoft due to a serious illness. And when, in 1986,
Microsoft went public, the stock rose so much that Bill Gates became the youngest
billionaire in history. Gates launched a graphical interface for MS-DOS called
Windows: Windows 3.0 in 1990 and Windows 3.1 in 1992. This wasn't really a new
operating system, but, as mentioned, a graphical interface with a mouse, icons,
and windows under which the old MS-DOS continued to run. However, it was very
well received by users, who finally had a system as intuitive as the Macintosh, but
much more economical to run on a PC, thanks to which it easily consolidated its
position in the market. The huge success led to the real renewal that was Windows
95 (in whose global promotional campaign Gates himself took on the role of
List of references

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