... about BASIC
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https://paulallen.com/Futurist/Microsoft.aspx 1975
-- PaulAllen - Microsoft
....
Then Paul typed “PRINT 2+2” and the machine responded by printing out the number 4.
Never had the printing of one digit been so monumental; from that moment on, Paul and Bill’s lives would never be the same.
They started Microsoft together, on April 4, 1975 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
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https://www.i-programmer.info/history/people/739-kemeny-a-kurtz.html 1964
-- Kemeny & Kurtz - The Invention Of BASIC
....
-Who invented Basic?
-Bill Gates?
-No.
There are even some, its real inventors included, who say that he was the man who ruined the language.
Basic is a language that was invented for the sole purpose of making programming as easy as it could possibly be
and the argument goes that the Basics that we have all come to know have abandoned this goal in favour of trying to look like other languages.
But to understand this argument you need to know about Kemeny and Kurtz the true inventors of Basic
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https://www.dartmouth.edu/basicfifty/basic.html 1964
-- BASIC Begins at Dartmouth
BASIC logoAt 4 a.m. on May 1, 1964, in the basement of College Hall, Professor John Kemeny and a student programmer simultaneously typed RUN on neighboring terminals.
-- basicmanual_1964.pdf
https://www.dartmouth.edu/basicfifty/basicmanual_1964.pdf
-- BASIC Commands
https://www.dartmouth.edu/basicfifty/commands.html
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https://www.gocertify.com/articles/who-invented-the-computer-john-g-kemeny-and-basic
-- GoCertify Article: Who Invented the Computer? John G. Kemeny and BASIC
...
From there, BASIC expanded into private industry with versions being written for the various computer manufacturers, including IBM and Hewlett-Packard.
In 1975, two enterprising computer buffs, Bill Gates and Paul Allen, wrote a commercial program, Altair BASIC, and sold it to hobbyists for $150 per copy.
Altair BASIC was Microsoft's first consumer product.
Unfortunately, the price was so high that it led to the first widespread case of software piracy as users obtained and ran unauthorized copies.
(The rampant piracy ultimately led directly to Gates' angry Open Letter to Hobbyists.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists
John George Kemeny opened up computer programming to the masses.
Not everyone was happy with BASIC and how it opened computer programming to the masses.
Its most strident opponent was the influential computer scientist Edsger Dijkstra who claimed in a 1975 essay that it was impossible
to teach good programming to students who had been exposed to BASIC, stating, "As potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."
In spite of Dijkstra's tirade against BASIC, countless individuals have used the program as a springboard to successful careers in programming.
Kemeny is generally believed to have paid little heed to criticisms of his creation.
He proudly drove his 1967 Thunderbird around campus with a vanity license plate that read "BASIC."
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... about DOS
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https://www.quora.com/How-much-money-did-Bill-Gates-pay-to-buy-the-disk-operating-system-that-he-turned-around-and-leased-to-IBM
-- How much money did Bill Gates pay to buy the disk operating system that he turned around and leased to IBM? - Quora
Bill Gates paid $50,000 to a company called Seattle Computer Products, for the exclusive rights to QDOS later known as 86-DOS, a CP/M clone.
He then renamed it as MS-DOS.
He then licensed MS-DOS to IBM for them to use in their soon to be released personal computer.
IBM renamed it PC-DOS when it was bundled with their PCs.
Importantly, IBM did not have an exclusive license to MS-DOS, so Microsoft was free to license the Operating System to anyone else who wanted it.
Considering the billions earned by Microsoft through the sale of MS-DOS to IBM clone producers, the $50,000 paid by Microsoft to Seattle Computer Products was one of the best investments ever made by any company.
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https://cult.honeypot.io/reads/lesson-from-gary-kildall/
-- Lessons Learned From the Man Who Could’ve Been Bill Gates | .cult by Honeypot
First, a disclaimer: this won’t be a feel-good read.
In fact, what I’m about to reflect on is probably one of the saddest stories in computer history.
Few people know about Gary Kildall, though his contributions to the world of personal computers were invaluable.
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Ok I'm on it...
Damn, deadline is tomorrow… 