Bill Gates and Nolan Bushnell - Pioneers Of Computer...

Pioneers of Computer Programming When you think of 21st century computing, two things come to mind: Windows and video games. Learning Team A introduces you to the two men responsible for these phenomena Ââ€" Bill Gates and Nolan Bushnell. William Henry Gates III During that late 1960s and early 1970s, BASIC was one of the premier programming languages. At that time, Bill Gates and his friend Paul Allen made the commitment to learn BASIC by reading the user manuals. In exchange for computer time, they made an agreement with a local company called the Computer Center Corporation to provide de-bugging services for software on the companys DEC machine. This time was used not only to search for errors, but also to study the operating†¦show more content†¦After seeing the magazine article, Gates contacted Ed Roberts of the MITS Company and proposed to that he write some BASIC software for the Altair. The MITS personnel were impressed with the initial work that Gates and his friends had completed and decided to meet with them to test the teams code. After a successful demonstration of the code, Gates made the decision to leave school and move to Albuquerque and work with MITS on the Altair. After the move Gates would devote his energies to Microsoft, a company that he would establish in 1975 with Allen. Guided by a belief that the computer would be a valuable tool on every office desktop and in every home, they began developing software for personal computers. Microsoft would sell its BASIC system to MITS, NCR and Intel. It proved to be more cost effective for companies to buy Microsoft software rather than spend the time and money to develop their own. In January of 1979, Gates made the decision to move Microsoft to Seattle, Washington. Gates believed that part of the country was better suited for recruiting programmers. Microsoft adopted a new standard for hiring employees; the company decided to hire only the most gifted and intelligent new college graduates rather than experienced programmers. The company was looking for talent that came with no previous programming biases. The expansions of personnel would lead to the development of a