. In a joint effort between BillGates and Kent Evans, they constructed an application tocomputerize class schedules. In the 1972-73 school year, theschool used the program for a cost of two dollars per student.To this day, the changes in the program have only beenminor, as it is still being used. In the fall of 1973, Bill Gatesbegan college at Harvard University. His major was inpre-law, though he did not know what he wanted to do. In histhird year of college, Bill Gates dropped out to begin acompany called "Micro-Soft"( A combination of"microcomputer software"), centered in Albuquerque, NewMexico. While still at Harvard, Bill Gates had been working ona new program called "BASIC"(Beginners All-purposeSymbolic Instruction). This was a new programming language.The first computer to use BASIC was the Altair. Gates told theAltair executives that BASIC was done three weeks before itwas actually finished. This is an example of business-wiseGates is. If would not have done this, he never would havereceived the contract to create and own the language used onthe Altair, and Bill Gates company, Microsoft, would havedied. From then on, BASIC evolved along with Microsoft. BillGates later purchased a product and rights to a revolutionarynew disk operating system called 86-QDOS from SeattleComputer Products. He then changed the name to MS-DOSand resold the product for a profit. Keeping the rights, he gotto receive royalties in addition to the sale price of MS-DOS.Bill Gates and Microsoft still to this day receive royalties andprofits from the original 86-QDOS. Later in the life ofMicrosoft, Bill Gates developed a new GUI (Graphical UserInterface), for a disk operating system. He called this newstyle Windows. Windows versions 1-2 earned him a smallamount of money, but the major jackpot came from Windows3.1, Windows 95, Windows NT, and soon, Windows 98. Thisnew approach to a graphical interface has often beenimitated, but no imitation has ever come clo...
