<From: "Hotze" &lt;photze(a)batelco.com.bh&gt; <Hi. Now, I don't want to start a flamewar, but still, Microsoft HAS play <an important part in personal computing, for better or for worse. From 1 <or so onwards, they were a industry dominator. First off your dates are grossly in error. MS in the persona of Gates was involved in putting basic on the altair via MITS. When CP/M was gaining ground as the dominent 8080/z80 OS microsoft was the dominent language supplier. The majik system was a z80 running cp/m and MSbasic compiler, MAC and L80, and maybe Multiplan. <for say... the Apple II? PDP's? UN*X boxes (once again, omitting curren <ports of IE 4.0)? Apple: Apple softcard combind package of CP/M and MS languges and a z80. TRS80: Disk basic. PDP-11: Didn't MS do a unix varient? UNix... they did have a hand in a PC unix and apps for it. Allison