Soldato
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Day to day..... bet he's got something interesting in the garage
Bill Gates retires from Microsoft
- Thread starter Furton
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Soldato
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A PS3?
Soldato
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Soldato
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Mr G might. 
Man of Honour
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He's GodWould we be typing on a multi core CPU without him? Would we have advanced graphics without Microsoft? We probably wouldn't have a means to discus this.
I wouldn't go quite that far. We'd go about our interweb days differently, but I think we'd go about them all the same.
Burnsy
Would our computer tecnology be as advanced if Mr gates was never born?
He has created our computer age, one man.
Just watched it (if it's the Money Programme one we're talking about) - for those that haven't seen it yet it's worth watching and was certainly better than I was expecting.
In my opinion, the program showed just how much Microsoft's fortunes have been achieved by them selling other people's ideas, as opposed to them creating something new and unique themselves.
It's a shame that they didn't focus more on the IBM deal and Microsoft's purchase of QDOS, as it's a pretty fascinating story... Bill Gates recommended IBM use Gary Kildall's CP/M, but the deal never happened allegedly because of an NDA in the contract. So IBM went with Microsoft, who delivered their modified version of QDOS, which they bought for $50K. However, it was discovered that QDOS infringed CP/M, but because IP laws were a bit dodgy back then, Kildall didn't sue IBM but rather struck a deal to licence CP/M alongside MS-DOS. IBM screwed him over, though, by selling it for $250 whereas MS-DOS was only $50. Funnily enough, MS-DOS was the more popular choice amongst consumers - despite CP/M having previously been the grand-daddy of all OSes... and the rest, as they say, is history.
In my opinion, the program showed just how much Microsoft's fortunes have been achieved by them selling other people's ideas, as opposed to them creating something new and unique themselves.
It's a shame that they didn't focus more on the IBM deal and Microsoft's purchase of QDOS, as it's a pretty fascinating story... Bill Gates recommended IBM use Gary Kildall's CP/M, but the deal never happened allegedly because of an NDA in the contract. So IBM went with Microsoft, who delivered their modified version of QDOS, which they bought for $50K. However, it was discovered that QDOS infringed CP/M, but because IP laws were a bit dodgy back then, Kildall didn't sue IBM but rather struck a deal to licence CP/M alongside MS-DOS. IBM screwed him over, though, by selling it for $250 whereas MS-DOS was only $50. Funnily enough, MS-DOS was the more popular choice amongst consumers - despite CP/M having previously been the grand-daddy of all OSes... and the rest, as they say, is history.
No he didn't. He is a smart guy, but let's not go overboard on what he has achieved.
Things would be different... we'd be using something different (my money is with a version of CP/M but maybe it would've been OS/2) but we'd still be using some form of OS to do things - it just wouldn't have the Microsoft logo on it.
Man of Honour
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He was a major contributor no doubt, but to say he invented the computer age is laughable.
Burnsy
Soldato
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Ah ok, fair enough
Did they sell out to one of them or they just give the idea up?
It was all out copying. Xerox sued them.
Apple event tried suing Microsoft for copying MacOS
But the Xerox lawsuit negated that.The Xerox lawsuit got dismissed though.
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I agree that MS's enforced standards are by far not the best for the industry and only became so universal because of the ubiquity of Windows and their monopolistic business practices. I also agree with previous posters who said that most of MS's decent innovations were pioneered and successfully marketed by others before copied by them. I would further add that the bloat in hardware requirements which happens with each successive version of Windows has held back the capabilities of modern computers greatly, in the sense that we should've been able to accomplish a lot more with the processing power we've got today.
However, I'm not at all sure we'd have been better off without them, as the single thing that has facilitated not the progress and advancement, but the sheer degree of penetration of computers into our lives was the domination of the Windows platform. I know this is the kind of argument that would take too long to support adequately, but, to name but one example, I'm pretty sure that videogames would now be 99% restricted to consoles now had it not been for DOS and Windows. I mean, unless you think that OS/2 had a fighting chance to replace DOS, fight off a resurgent Apple and the growth of Open Source? Maybe it would, and it would've become as ubiquitous as Windows is todya, but I didn't follow OS/2 closely enough to know and IBM had not been very good at leading the industry. In a way, the most helpful thing that MS has done to promote the broader adoption of computers came about BECAUSE of its monopolistic practices - and none of the good stuff they've done are worth mentioning because they would've been done by others as well.
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Your argument is a bit hypocritical. You say that MS has held back the capabilities of modern computers, but without the increasing needs of Windows, the hardware industry would have no reason to push so hard to increase processing power and advance hardware technologies.
Burnsy
Thats not really true at all. You think all the HPC/Big Iron stuff runs on windows? Massive parallel architectures, **** loads of ram etc... You miss the big picture here, sure the majority of desktop computers run windows. 75% of the CPU's in the world are in embedded systems and don't run windows. Windows really does not lead the high performance market either.
I admit games have pushed the graphics industry but it was not windows which did. If developers didn't write games for windows it would just be another platform. Makes no difference which platform you code for its just windows has the market share.
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Man of Honour
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I wasn't referring to the high performance server market, I was referring to the desktop consumer market. Since Vista was released, the base standard for a desktop or desktop machine has risen. This can only be a good thing.
Burnsy
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I'm not so sure about that either. MS' efforts in DirectX APIs and other graphics technologies have made it a lot more efficient for game coders.
Burnsy
I don't see how using more resources for negligible performance increases is a good thing. If you look at accelerated X windows (composite rendering etc..) it runs far better on much lower spec hardware than WPF stuff on vista.
Ok, games prolly wasn't a good choice of examples since MS bought out pretty much all the main games publishers, haha. Im sure if OpenGL got the same backing/resources it could just be in just the same state as DX is now.
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I'm not saying it is, but I am saying that raising the base spec of a PC is. Is it a good thing is we were still using what we'd consider 'old tech'? Even if it is "good enough"?
Burnsy