Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Jim Manley]

I thought it was just hilarious that Microsoft chose The Rolling
Stones' "Start Me Up" for the theme song at the launch of Windows 95,
unaware of the later lyrics in the song (not played during the launch,
oddly enough), "You make a grown man cry-y-y ... You make a grown man
cry-y-y ... You make a grown man cry-y-y ... "

Who says they lost their sense of humor ... oh, you mean them being
humorous on purpose, not making themselves a laughingstock ... mmm,
not so much.

As for when the lawyers showed up, Bill Gates' father was one of the
most wealthy corporate lawyers in Seattle, so it wasn't much of a risk
for Bill III to drop out of Hahvahd to pursue the launching of
Micro-Soft.  Hahvahd would have allowed him to return, especially
given Daddy's large checks written to cover Bill III's tuition, fees,
books, room/board, etc.

So, Bill II and Bill III undoubtedly had frequent and detailed
discussions about how to deal with IBM (non-exclusive licensing, IBM's
onerous non-disclosure agreements, IBM's likely motivations for
getting into the PC business, etc.).  The PC was developed by the IBM
Data Entry Systems Division in Boca Raton, FL - the keyboards,
monitors, and terminals folks.  IBM only saw the PC as a short-term,
standalone product that, in the best case, would simply become a
not-quite-dumb terminal that would increase the access to and sales of
their office AS/400 systems and System 370 and other mainframe
products.

IBM developed a Token Ring card for the PC in time for its launch
based on this intent, long before the Color Graphics Adapters were
available, about six months after launch, and the CGAs were only
produced in response to the completely unanticipated demand for the
PC.  IBM's suppliers were brow-beaten during the early years of PC
production because they suddenly were faced with a need to produce
millions, then tens of millions of parts per year.  This was far
beyond their past parts demand experience, and challenged them in ways
companies never had been before.  As Steve Jobs said in a full-page ad
taken out in the Wall Street Journal upon the PC's launch, "Welcome,
IBM.  Seriously."  Seriously, indeed.

The Token Ring card barely sold any units, in no small part because
IBM was completely unaware that microcomputer hobbyists and small
businesses were using modems, especially the Hayes SmartModem
products, to access on-line services such as The Well, GEnie,
CompuServe, etc.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

All the Best,
Jim

Volunteer Senior Docent
Artifact Restoration Engineer
Geek 2.0 Artifact
Computer History Museum

On Thu, Oct 18, 2018 at 10:58 PM Wayne S via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On Oct 18, 2018, at 15:01, Fred Cisin via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> >
> > Thank you for the correction.
> >
> > Yes, companies often change their names.
> >
> > Gary Kildall founded Intergalactic Digital Research.
> >
> > George Morrow founded Thinker Toys, which later became Morrow's Micro Stuff, and eventually Morrow Designs.
> >
> > Greenberg and Grant founded Kentucky Fried Computers, which became North Star (due to a lawsuit from a chicken place), and eventually NorthStar
> >
> > Can you pinpoint when the microcomputer businesses lost their sense of humor?
>
> When the Lawyers got involved?
> >
> >> On Thu, 18 Oct 2018, Murray McCullough via cctalk wrote:
> >>
> >> I would like to make a correction: Paul Allen helped to create
> >> Micro-Soft not MicroSoft as I had written. When trying to preserve
> >> computing history it's really not permissable to make such an
> >> error.(It's the prof. in me!)
> >>
> >> Happy Computing!
> >>
> >> Murray  :)
> >
> > --
> > Fred Cisin                      cisin at xenosoft.com
> > XenoSoft                        http://www.xenosoft.com
> > PO Box 1236                     (510) 234-3397
> > Berkeley, CA 94701-1236
> >