4 ms·
I don't know if the Gates/Basic example is really organic. I happened to be hacking late at night on the same Harv-10 machine in the old CRCT machine room (now
by cpr 17y ago
I don't know if the Gates/Basic example is really organic.
I happened to be hacking late at night on the same Harv-10 machine in the old CRCT machine room (now gone, replaced by the Gates/Ballmer cheese wedge building), during the period where Gates was building his 8080 assembler/linker/simulator and developing Basic using those tools. (I do remember teasing him about toy computers at the time.)
My impression was that he wasn't trying to actually use the Basic himself, but saw that for these hobbyist computers to make any headway, they were going to need a higher-level language. He was already a very proficient 4004/8008/8080 assembler hacker and a PDP-10 assembler whiz.
I.e., his Basic development was not organic but fairly coldly calculated as an obvious business effort.
(He was "yay close" to being expunged from Harvard (worse than being expelled) for using their research machines for profit, and he had to give back the $10K that MITS had advanced him. 'Twas a bit unfair, as I saw several different commercial efforts running off that same machine (all of them late-night denizens of the computer room like me), and no one ever squawked about them.)
- maukdaddy 17y agoWell, I think Gates ended up having the last laugh ;) He's actually worth more than Harvard's endowment.
- cpr 17y agoYes, especially since Harvard's endowment (already down 30% or more) is wildly overstated due to all the illiquid assets they own.
- maukdaddy 17y agoQuoted as $5 billion in real estate alone. Given the market you can assume -20 to -30% at least on most RE portfolios.
- cpr 17y agoI was thinking more of the whole derivatives scam they were partially responsible for cooking up in the first place. Those are clearly worthless, and account for a big chunk of the endowment. They just can't bring themselves to admit it yet. [Edit] I guess I'm shedding crocodile tears for them. I've no love lost for my alma mater, which, while academically valuable, is really nothing more than a soulless multinational corporation. They long ago gave up any semblance of trying to actually educate the whole man.
- gruseom 17y agoI'd just like to point out how astonishingly cool it is that we get to read first-hand comments like this.