Microsoft Celebrates 40th Anniversary

HughPickens.com writes Alyssa Newcomb reports at ABC News that the software company started by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975 is 40 and fabulous and highlights products and moments that helped define Microsoft's first four decades including: Microsoft's first product — software for the Altair 8800; Getting a deal to provide a DOS Operating System for IBM's computers in 1980; Shipping Windows 1.0 in 1985; Microsoft Office for Mac released in 1989; Windows 3.0 ships in 1990, ushering in the era of graphics on computers; Windows 95 launches in 1995, selling an astounding 7 million copies in the first five weeks, and the first time the start menu, task bar, minimize, maximize and close buttons are introduced on each window.

For his part, Bill Gates sent a letter to employees celebrating Microsoft's anniversary, and how far computing has come since he and Paul Allen set the goal of a computer on every desk and in every home, and predicting that computing will evolve faster in the next 10 years than it ever has before.

Comments

History revisionism

[Anonymous Coward]

WOW: "ushering in the era of graphics on computers", WTF is HughPickens.com smoking?

I don't get how everyone is swallowing this propaganda whole every time there's a corporate PR push like this, computer graphics predates Microsoft by decades, and computer graphics 'in every home' predates Windows 3.0 by at least 5 years if you only take the various Apples, Commodores/Amigas, Ataris that were out by 1985 and literally sold millions by then (C=64 e.g. sold 27 million overall until Commodore went bankrupt in 1993). Even "multimedia" was a popular Commodore marketing term for their CD-ROM equipped systems years before Windows 95. This blurb makes it sound like Microsoft "innovated" again and invented computer graphics all by themselves.

Same for "the first time the start menu, task bar, minimize, maximize and close buttons are introduced on each window" (style errors aside: "start menu"/"task bar" on every window?), again min/max/close buttons were present on every window in early Lisa/MacOS, AmigaOS, Atari TOS, even Geos for C=64 way before MS copied it from Apple (who copied it from Xerox). The only thing Microsoft keeps (re)inventing is history. I guess stock prices aren't inflated high enough yet.

Re:And to think

[drinkypoo]

AmigaBASIC also came from Microsoft. It was pretty good, although for some reason you needed a RAM expansion to perform a graphics fill operation.

Re:And to think

[spire3661]

Convicted monopolist, right there with AT&T and Standard Oil...

Maybe this will give some context.

[Johnny Loves Linux]

I've seen a lot of pro and con posts about Microsoft's place in computer history. Maybe this post will help people see it more clearly.

1. Microsoft didn't invent BASIC. BASIC was around since 1964. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B....
2. Microsoft didn't invent DOS. They bought something called QDOS and rebranded it DOS. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8...
3. Microsoft didn't invent ubiquitous computing. IBM created a personal computer based on the Intel 8086. But long before that there was the TRS 80, the Commodore Pet, Apple II, and for those people who preferred to roll their own hardware, there were Heathkit parts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathkit_H8, and http://oldcomputers.net/heathk...) to build one's own computers.
4. Before there was DOS there was CP/M which could run on Intel 8080, Zilog Z80, Motorola 6502 (it was available as a card for Apple II's). There was even a version for 8086. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M)
5. The PC industry began not with Microsoft, but with Compaq who made the first IBM PC clones. You may be too young to remember, but PCs used to be called IBM PCs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
6. Others have already pointed out that GUIs began with Xerox PARC, and the mouse itself goes back to 1968 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos)

So what exactly did Microsoft invent? Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

1. A method of ensuring an operating system monopoly by preventing other operating systems from being preinstalled on OEM equipment.
2. A method of ensuring that OEMs cooperated by giving them a kickback if they cooperated with Microsoft's strategies.
3. A EULA (End User Licensing Agreement) making it difficult, if not impossible, for an individual to decline the license, return the software, and receive a refund for the Microsoft software they didn't want to use.

I don't believe it's immoral or wrong for folks to make their livelihood using Microsoft products, but I do think it's unwise to do business with Microsoft while being ignorant of their long history. I also think it's dishonest not to admit that the Microsoft Corporation has a long history of doing shady things to software partners (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyglass,_Inc.#Browser_wars and http://www.justice.gov/atr/cas... for example) , OEM vendors, Standards Boards (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open_XML) and lastly to customers (http://www.ecis.eu/documents/Finalversion_Consumerchoicepaper.pdf)

Re:What?

[GrahamCox]

Windows had a colour graphics API; the Macs of the period were still black and white

Nope. Colour Quickdraw was written in 1985 and shipped with the first Mac II in 1986. It had a full colour RGB model, though initially only had 256 colour hardware - 32-bit hardware came in 1987. Even the original "black-and-white" Quickdraw had a simple colour model to support colour printing on Apple's dot-matrix printer.

You could also do colour graphics on a C64, BBC Micro and ZX Spectrum (hint - the name "Spectrum" was for that very reason). Rewrite history all you like - some might even believe it - but there are plenty of us still around that actually remember how it was.