Celebrate IE7 with Useless Microsoft Facts!
- Contrary to popular belief, The Altair 8800, not the Apple II, was the first commercially sucessful microcomputer (predating the Apple II by two years, in 1975). Virtually useless, except as a toy for engineers and homebrew computer enthusiasts, the programming language that made it useful (Altair BASIC) to an average user was the first product of a fledgling software startup called Microsoft.
- Microsoft had to intially turn down IBM, when they came looking for an OS to run their proposed Personal Computer, because they didn't have an operating system to offer at that time. IBM only came back to Microsoft when Digital Research (the rival Bill Gates sent IBM to) refused to sign the releases and non-disclosure agreements IBM wanted before even looking at CP/M (Digital Reasearch's pre-existing mainframe OS)
- To fill IBM's request, Microsoft purchased the rights to Seattle Computer Products' QDOS (Quick Disk Operating System - a reverse engineered variant of CP/M) for $50,000.
- IBM never considered the possibility of the PC Clone market, hence their licensing agreement with Microsoft was never exclusive, freeing Microsoft to supply MS-DOS to whoever wanted it.
- Most of the internal applications contained in the original Mac OS were created by Microsoft. Until that point, Microsoft strictly made DOS and programming languages. (The PC application market during the 80s was dominated by Lotus)
- Microsoft helped create IBM's OS/2 - which was intended to help IBM retake the market lead over,cheaper MS-DOS run IBM clones.
- When Apple sued Microsoft over claims that Windows was largely copied from the Macintosh, Xerox sued Apple for similar claims over it's prototype GUI-based Alto system (Which was fully-operational in 1973, but never commercially released). The suit was dismissed due to statute of limitations expiring.
- Sources: Wikipedia and the documentary "Triumph Of The Nerds"
First post! W00T!
- Microsoft had to intially turn down IBM, when they came looking for an OS to run their proposed Personal Computer, because they didn't have an operating system to offer at that time. IBM only came back to Microsoft when Digital Research (the rival Bill Gates sent IBM to) refused to sign the releases and non-disclosure agreements IBM wanted before even looking at CP/M (Digital Reasearch's pre-existing mainframe OS)
- To fill IBM's request, Microsoft purchased the rights to Seattle Computer Products' QDOS (Quick Disk Operating System - a reverse engineered variant of CP/M) for $50,000.
- IBM never considered the possibility of the PC Clone market, hence their licensing agreement with Microsoft was never exclusive, freeing Microsoft to supply MS-DOS to whoever wanted it.
- Most of the internal applications contained in the original Mac OS were created by Microsoft. Until that point, Microsoft strictly made DOS and programming languages. (The PC application market during the 80s was dominated by Lotus)
- Microsoft helped create IBM's OS/2 - which was intended to help IBM retake the market lead over,cheaper MS-DOS run IBM clones.
- When Apple sued Microsoft over claims that Windows was largely copied from the Macintosh, Xerox sued Apple for similar claims over it's prototype GUI-based Alto system (Which was fully-operational in 1973, but never commercially released). The suit was dismissed due to statute of limitations expiring.
- Sources: Wikipedia and the documentary "Triumph Of The Nerds"
First post! W00T!