or is he just the luckiest man alive?
ive read that bill did work on programs for the altair, but his luck turned on when a program aimed for IBM computers, was rejected by them, he then licensed it and tried again with IBM, they leased it off of him, but IBM was real pissed to find out it was the same one they turned down...better known as DOS...
im not sure who was the creator of that original ware, but from what i read, bill just made sure it was licensed under microsoft...from that point on, windows grew...
i used DOS when i frist came out, crappy ware, but thats all i had to use, not sure when the GUI started to come in and where that idea came from...

either this or bill is one smart arse human with mountain loads of cash....

He's not a coder by any means. He's a very, very smart businessman and an aggressive one.

Don't tell me than it not Gates who write coding for Windows OS...

n00b...

That's not entirely correct. First of all, Bill Gate came from a pretty well off family. His mother has connections with the bigwigs at IBM at that time. Due to this connection, it allowed Gates to buy DOS rights from them, and the rest is history.

It's who you know, not what you know that counts/

that is not entirely true. he won the money to buy DOS from a lucky hand of Go Fish.

Hahahaha, thanks for calling me that.

from what i read, bill bought/got a license for th o.g dos, before he approached ibm, the second time around...from what the article said, the ware was developed from another person, not sure who he is, but he got jacked from bill..

So who wrote the codes ???

But anyway that Bill Gates was so damm lucky. Even GUI type OS was not from his idea but he made that kind of OS famous. That guy freakin genius.

cannot remember his name at this time, but it wasnt bill nor paul allen...dont get me wrong, bill and paul know computers for what its worth, but they didnt write the original codes for windows...

Bill only coded Notepad



btw how accurate was the movie "Pirates of the Silicon Vallety"?

windows wasn't the first os with a good gui they just knew how to sell their stuff

agreed...

Although Gates rightfully earned credit for building one of the fastest-growing and most profitable companies ever established, Microsoft started out on a shaky foundation. Gates and Allen had sold their first commercially developed software for $3,000 and royalties. Before long, however, Microsoft found itself unable to cover its overhead. Even though Gates and Allen received royalties, their software was also pirated by computer hackers. This piracy led Gates to write an "Open Letter to Hobbyists," which said that computer software should not be copied by the then relatively small computer community without the developer's permission. Gates also recognized at this point in time that the future of computer software lay in owning a standard software package to be used on most computers.

By the late 1970s the computing giant IBM had plans for marketing a personal computer for home use. They approached Microsoft to develop the standard operating system for their home computer models. Gates and Allen then went out and purchased for $50,000 an operating system called Q-Dos, which had been developed by Seattle Computer. Q-Dos was compatible with the Intel processor that IBM intended to use. The two then adapted the Q-Dos system and presented it to IBM. Money magazine quoted Gates as recalling, "We bet all our resources on that system" (July 1986).

Gates had learned well his early lessons in the software business. He insisted that IBM make Microsoft the exclusive software licensee for their home computers, meaning that all IBM products would have Microsoft operating systems. Furthermore, Gates negotiated a contract that allowed Microsoft to retain the right to manufacture and license the software, which he and Allen had named MS-DOS, to other manufacturers. Because there were three other operating systems for microprocessors at that time, Gates didn't own the sole industry standard. But he was well on his way. He and Allen made MS-DOS the most attractive system to computer manufacturers because Microsoft offered a flat-fee license rather than a per-unit contract. Gates and Allen also encouraged software developers to create programs that would broaden their system's capabilities. Their strategy was a huge success because manufacturers initially saved money. In addition, the software developers had an easier job designing such single applications as word processing for use on computers made by other manufacturers.

http://www.answers.com/bill%20gates