STEVE JOBS - BILL GATES

MARK ZUCKERBERG

GOT EVERYTHING FROM

THE US MILITARY

By

Søren Nielsen

2019

PART II

"Steve Jobs" - "Bill Gates" - "Mark Zuckerberg" - "Larry Page" - "Sergey Brin" are all user of things that the US military has invented, without the US military, they would never have gotten to where they are today, and it's the facts.

And today it`s "Bill Gates" turn.

The history of the computer industry is filled with fascinating tales of riches that appear to practically fall from the sky.

Bill Gates.

"Bill Gates" invented nothing, MS-DOS was a program, he bought from someone, that had originally been developed for "The US Air Force".

The US Air Force started with MS-DOS in 1988, for non-IBM PCs (such as Zenith). The Navy’s first desktop computer (called a "calculator" for political reasons) was a Tektronix 4051, using a Tektronix version of Basic.

Instead of digital video processing and RAM, it used a DVST (Direct View Storage Tube) drawing directly on the screen using vectors. To see exactly what that looks like, watch the original Battlestar Galactica TV series. The green display was part of the 4050 series. Tektronix used to boast about that in their literature.

But the U.S. military desired a mechanical calculator more optimized for scientific computation. By World War II the U.S. had battleships that could lob shells weighing as much as a small car over distances up to 25 miles. 

Physicists could write the equations that described how atmospheric drag, wind, gravity, muzzle velocity, etc. would determine the trajectory of the shell. 

But solving such equations was extremely laborious. This was the work performed by the human computers. Their results would be published in ballistic "firing tables" published in gunnery manuals. 

During World War II the U.S. military scoured the country looking for (generally female) math majors to hire for the job of computing these tables. 

But not enough humans could be found to keep up with the need for new tables. Sometimes artillery pieces had to be delivered to the battlefield without the necessary firing tables and this meant they were close to useless because they couldn't be aimed properly. 

Faced with this situation, the U.S. military was willing to invest in even hair-brained schemes to automate this type of computation.

Deal of the Century

Bill Gates and his head counsel Bill Neukom, decided to make an offer to license features of Apple's operating system. Apple agreed and a contract was drawn up. 

Here's the clincher: Microsoft wrote the licensing agreement to include use of Apple features in Microsoft Windows version 1.0 and all future Microsoft software programs. As it turned out, this move by Bill Gates was as brilliant as his decision to buy QDOS from Seattle Computer Products and his convincing IBM to let Microsoft keep the licensing rights to MS-DOS. (You can read all about those smooth moves in our feature on MS-DOS.)

Windows 1.0 floundered on the market until January 1987, when a Windows-compatible program called Aldus PageMaker 1.0 was released. PageMaker was the first WYSIWYG desktop-publishing program for the PC. 

Later that year, Microsoft released a Windows-compatible spreadsheet called Excel. Other popular and useful software like Microsoft Word and Corel Draw helped promote Windows, however, Microsoft realized that Windows needed further development.

The making of Bill Gates

The history of MS DOS is part legend, part myth, but either way, it is responsible for Bill Gate's fortune, as well as that of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

But by far the most famous story of missed fame and fortune is that of Gary Kildall. A pioneer in computer operating systems, Kildall wrote Control Program for Microcomputers (CP/M), the operating system used on many of the early hobbyist personal computers, such as the MITS Altair 8800, the IMSAI 8080, and the Osborne 1, before IBM introduced its own machine, the PC. Kildall could have virtually owned the personal computer operating system business, had he sold that system to IBM. He didn’t. Why is a matter of speculation, mundane gossip, and urban legend. We’ll get to that.

Bill Gates at Microsoft, however, did sell an operating system to IBM—and reaped then-unimaginable rewards. A cloud of speculation has hung over that part of the story as well. The big question: Was the operating system Gates sold to IBM his to sell? Or was a key part of it stolen from Kildall?

Microsoft has stated that its hands were clean. Kildall maintained that QDOS, and subsequently MS-DOS, had been directly copied from CP/M and thus infringed on his copyright. But until now there’s been no way to conduct a reliable examination of the software itself, to look inside MS-DOS for the fingerprints of CP/M, and settle the issue once and for all.

In any case, it’s a fact that no deal was signed. Kildall later said that he met IBM negotiator Jack Sams on a flight to Florida that evening, negotiated a deal on the flight, and shook hands on it. Sams denied ever meeting Kildall. In fact, the IBM negotiators, still in need of an operating system, flew to Seattle again that day—not Florida—and met with Bill Gates.

Since Gates’s first meeting with IBM, he had conveniently gotten his hands on a microcomputer operating system similar to Kildall’s, from nearby Seattle Computer Products. SCP, which sold microcomputer boards, needed an operating system that ran on the new Intel 8086 processor. 

Because DRI was late in porting its system to that processor, SCP hired programmer Tim Paterson to create one. It called this system QDOS, for "Quick and Dirty Operating System." Gates bought the rights to QDOS for $75 000 and hired Paterson to modify it into MS-DOS; that’s what he licensed to IBM for its PC as PC-DOS.

(MS DOSMicrosoft)The story goes: IBM was building a new device, a personal computer, using a fast new chip and it needed an operating system.

It went to the guy who was famous at the time for building operating systems for small computers. Legend has it, he wasn't home because he was a pilot and out flying, so the meeting never happened. Another version says he did meet with IBM but couldn't agree on price. 

Meanwhile, IBM also decided not to write all the software for the new device itself and came to a tiny company called Microsoft to partner on a language called BASIC. Microsoft had become known for this language.

In talking to IBM, Bill Gates heard of IBM's predicament for an operating system so he went out and bought one, and hired the guy that created it to turn it into MS DOS. It was one that competed with the pilot's operating system. Legend has it, he paid $75,000, offered it to IBM for $50,000 with the stipulation that Microsoft was allowed to license it to other PC makers, too.

Various branches of the military have mandated that future systems will be based on Zero Client or Thin Client technology.

Some of the earliest computers were military computers. Military requirements for portability and ruggedness led to some of the earliest transistorized computers, such as the 1959 AN/MYK-1 (MOBIDIC).

The 1960 M18 FADAC, and the 1962 D-17B; the earliest integrated-circuit based computer. 

The 1964 D-37C; as well as one of the earliest laptop computers, the 1982 Grid Compass. 

Military requirements for a computer small enough to fit through a submarine's hatch led to the AN/UYK-1.