4 ms·

I have a copy of the first edition of The Road Ahead. Here is the index entry for Internet: Internet, 3-4, 91-100, 91 activities on, 93-97 addresses on, 94

I have a copy of the first edition of The Road Ahead. Here is the index entry for Internet: Internet, 3-4, 91-100, 91 activities on, 93-97 addresses on, 94 cost of use of, 97-99, 125 e-mail on, 96-97, 124-25 expectations for, 125 foundation of, 97 growth and evolution of, 91, 95-96 and information highway, 3-4, 89, 95, 100, 230, 246 and publication, 95, 123-25 real-time content on, 99 regulation of, 161-63, 204 revenue from, 125 and security, 95, 96, 145 software on, 100 and standards, 96 and telephone system, 99 and Windows, 64 and WWW, 94, 95, 193, 201

edw519 18y ago
What was I thinking? I obviously read something that was wrong. Looking for my source... [EDIT: I give up. I'm not looking anymore. I thought it may have been "Hard Drive" but it's not. So I either read something that was wrong or (more likely) I misinterpreted it. But I stand by my claim that Joel's meeting is an excellent example of mismanagement. If Bill Gates wasn't so busy maintaining an atmosphere of bullying and "see how smart I am" and instead was a real visionary, would there even be a Yahoo or Google today?]
- chrisl99 18y ago
  One thing I should point out, is that although the 1st edition does have a fair bit of talk about the Internet, (even predicting things like VoIP), Gates uses the phrase "information highway" because he thought the Internet would be supplanted by something better: "...we stand at the brink of another revolution. This one will involve unprecedentedly inexpensive communication; all the computers will join together to communicate with us and for us. Interconnected globally, they will form a network, which is being called the information highway. A direct precursor is the present Internet..."
hernan7 18y ago
Maybe you could submit that to Snopes. I was another believer in the "no Internet in The Road Ahead" urban legend.
neilc 18y ago
Per Wikipedia: After the book was written, but before it hit bookstores, Gates recognized that the Internet was gaining the critical mass needed to drive it to dominance, and on December 7, 1995 — just weeks after the release of the book — he redirected Microsoft to become an Internet-focused company. Then he and coauthor Rinearson spent several months revising the book, making it 20,000 words longer and focused on the Internet. The revised edition was published in October 1996 as a trade paperback. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Ahead http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Ahead
- edw519 18y ago
  Thank you! For a minute there, I thought I was losing what's left of my mind.

edw519 18y ago

What was I thinking? I obviously read something that was wrong. Looking for my source... [EDIT: I give up. I'm not looking anymore. I thought it may have been "Hard Drive" but it's not. So I either read something that was wrong or (more likely) I misinterpreted it. But I stand by my claim that Joel's meeting is an excellent example of mismanagement. If Bill Gates wasn't so busy maintaining an atmosphere of bullying and "see how smart I am" and instead was a real visionary, would there even be a Yahoo or Google today?]

chrisl99 18y ago
One thing I should point out, is that although the 1st edition does have a fair bit of talk about the Internet, (even predicting things like VoIP), Gates uses the phrase "information highway" because he thought the Internet would be supplanted by something better: "...we stand at the brink of another revolution. This one will involve unprecedentedly inexpensive communication; all the computers will join together to communicate with us and for us. Interconnected globally, they will form a network, which is being called the information highway. A direct precursor is the present Internet..."

hernan7 18y ago

Maybe you could submit that to Snopes. I was another believer in the "no Internet in The Road Ahead" urban legend.

neilc 18y ago

Per Wikipedia: After the book was written, but before it hit bookstores, Gates recognized that the Internet was gaining the critical mass needed to drive it to dominance, and on December 7, 1995 — just weeks after the release of the book — he redirected Microsoft to become an Internet-focused company. Then he and coauthor Rinearson spent several months revising the book, making it 20,000 words longer and focused on the Internet. The revised edition was published in October 1996 as a trade paperback. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Ahead http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Ahead

edw519 18y ago
Thank you! For a minute there, I thought I was losing what's left of my mind.