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Bill Gates Invented Personal Computing !!!! Yay!

Fukui

Fukui

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 19, 2002
1,630
19
Well, its official, the Iraqi Information Minister has spoken.
Read the quote at the end of the story, Here

Bill Gates:
We invented personal computing. It is the best tool of empowerment there has ever been. If there is anything that clouds that picture, we need to fix it."
Click to expand...
Riggggghhht.
Guess what, Bill, I invented the Ass Kick. Its the best tool for empowerment there ever has been. If there's anything that clouds that picture, we need to fix it.

Can't beleive I ever bought products from that company.....
 
Woz strikes again, stealing Bill's ideas and bringing them to market quicker than Bill.

Of course Bill is probably really pissed he showed Steve that Xerox toy he had been playing around with -- mouse and icons.

Like who needed to make a GUI when DOS still had so many years of life.

Poor Bill, so many original ideas, and so little time to bring them to market.

But what do you expect from a company that spends so much time defending itself from bugs and security breaches. ;)
 
I remember over the summer watching some tech program on TV and Bill was doing an interview on tablet PCs and he also states that Microsoft invented the original tablet computer and that it was because of Microsoft's pioneering vision into the concept of a "PDA" device that lead to the boom in Palm Pilots and other hand held OS driven devices that will eventually change the way we live. Perhaps he never heard of the Newton, either?
 
"Creators" and their "creations"

Bill Gates: Personal Computing
Al Gore: The Internet

Anyone got any to add to the list?

By the way, Gates can suck it, because personal computing was created long before he got into the craft.
 
I think what Bill was trying to say was that the requirements for entry for getting a pc were lower than getting a mac as they were expensive at the time. So because of all the clone makers (copying IBM) out there and because windows was "good enough" and ran on difference hardware it prospered because ordinary joe blow could buy one and configure it for his needs.

They didn't invent it (Apple did) but they made sure it was personal for the masses and hence the huge market it has today.

Somebody can correct me however...
 
Originally posted by CrackedButter
I think what Bill was trying to say was that the requirements for entry for getting a pc were lower than getting a mac as they were expensive at the time. So because of all the clone makers (copying IBM) out there and because windows was "good enough" and ran on difference hardware it prospered because ordinary joe blow could buy one and configure it for his needs.

They didn't invent it (Apple did) but they made sure it was personal for the masses and hence the huge market it has today.

Somebody can correct me however...
Click to expand...

Nah man,I think that's a pretty good fair and objective response. Especially since it doesn't blast Gates immediately like some of these other guys in this thread, talk about prejudice.
 
Bill Gates has used lies, deception, and strongarm tactics. It's a matter of court record as part of the antitrust case against Microsoft. Is should be obvious to anyone who hasn't blindly accepted whatever Bill Gates says as gospel. He is just a man. Might does not make right.

Claiming that we have prejudice against him would imply that our dislike of his tactics is somehow invalid due to judging him without experience or evidence. I have a great deal of experience with the products and employees of Microsoft. I have even spoken with senior executives there. I have used every MS OS from MS-DOS to WindowsXP. I have created and administered Windows based networks and hacked the Windows registry to make the OS do what I wanted it to do. Dislike is not the same as prejudice. My dislike of the man comes from experience with what he has created. I have earned the right to not like him or Microsoft.

We have each formed our own opinions about the man. My personal opinion is that he said exactly what he meant to say. There is no reason to believe otherwise unless he clarifies his statements himself.

If you don't like to read our rips on Gates and MS, you don't have to. Just don't try to tell us that we are somehow prejudiced because we don't know any better.
 
Originally posted by yamabushi
Bill Gates has used lies, deception, and strongarm tactics. It's a matter of court record as part of the antitrust case against Microsoft. Is should be obvious to anyone who hasn't blindly accepted whatever Bill Gates says as gospel. He is just a man. Might does not make right.

Claiming that we have prejudice against him would imply that our dislike of his tactics is somehow invalid due to judging him without experience or evidence. I have a great deal of experience with the products and employees of Microsoft. I have even spoken with senior executives there. I have used every MS OS from MS-DOS to WindowsXP. I have created and administered Windows based networks and hacked the Windows registry to make the OS do what I wanted it to do. Dislike is not the same as prejudice. My dislike of the man comes from experience with what he has created. I have earned the right to not like him or Microsoft.

We have each formed our own opinions about the man. My personal opinion is that he said exactly what he meant to say. There is no reason to believe otherwise unless he clarifies his statements himself.

If you don't like to read our rips on Gates and MS, you don't have to. Just don't try to tell us that we are somehow prejudiced because we don't know any better.
Click to expand...

Alright, you got me there on some points, but i mean come on some of these comments are attacks on his, possibly, personal beliefs. In no, noticeable way( I mean who knows right), do they reflect the business tactics and what not that the mac community hates. Nor is that comment he made a reflection of the experiences that the mac community has had. In all it's an opinion/belief that he probably believes in 100%. And I mean, freak, does that make it right for people to go bashing him on his beliefs? wtf.
 
And I mean, freak, does that make it right for people to go bashing him on his beliefs? wtf. [/B]
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if someone's beleifs are are that much in opposition to the generally held beleif then sure. Now I am not sure if Bill gate's beleifs qualify's for being bashed but if someone is beleives that he is shoud be the ruler of the country and the country should be changed into a tyranny to keep him in comfort are you going to bash for his beleifs?. Sure am! which means at some point someone's beleifs can be too extreme. As for Bill gates while the modern microsoft has many layers of management he certainly pulled off some scams(for want of a better word) when Microsoft was small. Their was a recent article which had as a its premise that Bill gates was a "innovator" whereas the 2 steves and Hewlett and Packard etc were "inventors" and I think that describes the situation perfectly.
 
Originally posted by Golem
if someone's beleifs are are that much in opposition to the generally held beleif then sure. Now I am not sure if Bill gate's beleifs qualify's for being bashed but if someone is beleives that he is shoud be the ruler of the country and the country should be changed into a tyranny to keep him in comfort are you going to bash for his beleifs?. Sure am! which means at some point someone's beleifs can be too extreme. As for Bill gates while the modern microsoft has many layers of management he certainly pulled off some scams(for want of a better word) when Microsoft was small. Their was a recent article which had as a its premise that Bill gates was a "innovator" whereas the 2 steves and Hewlett and Packard etc were "inventors" and I think that describes the situation perfectly.
Click to expand...

sure, but we're not talking about extremeties here, unless I suppose one thinks we are. And all I'm trying to say is sure people have all the right to think that Microsoft and Bill Gates are evil and so forth, but regardless I think there should still be a limit on how quickly one goes ragging on another and to what degree. A mean a freaking minor comment like that? Geez, that's like how people ragged on Al Gore a while back and even then people were totally misquoting him.
As for what Microsoft did back then, yeah sure you could call it shady. But hey Walmart's and Ford's have done some bad practices as well, but you won't see me ripping on or saying the CEO's of Walmart and Ford have committed a great act of injustice on say Target and, I don't know, Toyota.
 
for the record, al gore never said he invented the internet. he said he took initiative in creating the internet, which is quite correct-- if it weren't for the funding he laid out as a senator, the internet might not be what it is today.

billy, however, is easily stupid enough to say this sort of thing... the internet, personal computing, it's all his.

;)
pnw
 
Originally posted by paulwhannel

billy, however, is easily stupid enough to say this sort of thing... the internet, personal computing, it's all his.
Click to expand...

Or smart enough to think that many people will be stupid enough to believe anything he says.
 
Originally posted by evilsprung
Alright, you got me there on some points, but i mean come on some of these comments are attacks on his, possibly, personal beliefs. In no, noticeable way( I mean who knows right), do they reflect the business tactics and what not that the mac community hates. Nor is that comment he made a reflection of the experiences that the mac community has had. In all it's an opinion/belief that he probably believes in 100%. And I mean, freak, does that make it right for people to go bashing him on his beliefs? wtf.
Click to expand...
Well, I originally posted it because I was so surprised that he actually thought he invented personal computing. But going to business practices, if that is more appropriate to discuss, then I would say that Gate's attitude toward assimilation of other ideas, and then marketing them as thier own is widely know....this one though was the most outrageous I have seen. You can attack the man's opinions (beliefs) and still not attack the man personally. I didn't mean to make anyone get offended over it. ;)
 
Originally posted by Powerbook G5
Either way, he literally said that he and Microsoft invented the PDA...so right there I can call him a liar without feeling bad for "attacking" him.
Click to expand...
Exactly.
 
Originally posted by CrackedButter
I think what Bill was trying to say was that the requirements for entry for getting a pc were lower than getting a mac as they were expensive at the time. So because of all the clone makers (copying IBM) out there and because windows was "good enough" and ran on difference hardware it prospered because ordinary joe blow could buy one and configure it for his needs.

They didn't invent it (Apple did) but they made sure it was personal for the masses and hence the huge market it has today.

Somebody can correct me however...
Click to expand...

This post made me do a little research on computers and their history. The Simon computer came out in 1950, however, it was basically a calculator. The Apple I came out in 1976, and Bill Gates and Paul Allen found Micro-Soft (the hyphen is later dropped) in 1975, so maybe that's what Gates is referring to. However, I don't believe founding a company actually makes you invent personal computing.

I guess it all depends on what the definition of "personal computer" is. Interesting find though.
 
*knocks on table*

Excuse while i do have a dislike for the man for what he has done for standards and the common good of computing i do believe what he said is garbage without a doubt.

However.

I also know MS is re-writing history in their favour with help from comments like these.

Also.

I am not blind because i dislike somebody.

But.

Bill Gates DID lower the requirements for people getting a Personal Computer and make it what it is today. I'm talking about for the hardware here.

Since anybody could create their own hardware for the x86 platform that in itself offered the variety it has spawned today in hardware. It brought competition and lower prices as more and more people bought these machines.

Macs had the chance to takeover the market at one point but they were expensive and only 1 company sold macs compared to the amount of companies that sold IBM compatible machines. Apple still had the advantage in terms of GUI design and WYSIWUG printing and the like.

Add to this the "cheap" and "good enough" operating system that anybody could use because it was "cheap" and "good enough" you can see how Microsoft lowered the entry for obtaining a PC. Of course they used strongarm tactics and forced other operating systems to die (ala OS2/Warp).

Anybody could afford a PC... everybody could use windows...and thats Microsoft creating ubiq'uitous computing everywhere.

Now you can hate them for doing that, but the run off or advantage from this is cheap hardware and cheap computing... but they didn't invent it... no no.

Like i said Apple did, but MS has got x86 where it is today through the creation of an abundant common platform that anybody could use, no matter how much you hate him or his company.
 
Originally posted by evilsprung
... And I mean, freak, does that make it right for people to go bashing him on his beliefs? wtf.
Click to expand...

On his "beliefs"?

"We invented personal computing" - Bill Gates

Most people figure personal computing started with the MITS Altair. Bill Gates was involved in writing a BASIC interpreter for that computer. Through the seventies, he lambasted hobbyists for copying it rather than buying it (it ran in 8K of memory, and cost $300 from Altair on paper tape). It was, of course, a clone of Dartmouth BASIC, which was well-known at the time. There were other BASICs available.

MS-DOS? Microsoft bought it from Seattle Computer Products.
Windows? It was a clone of the Macintosh that Bill started work on, even at the same time as he was trying to get Steve Jobs to license the Macintosh software.

I could go on. If Bill Gates truly believes he invented personal computing, he is delusional. It is safer and fairer to him to simply state that he is lying.
 
My thoughts, when Bill Gates sold MS-DOS to IBM (wherever they derived their product from) and retained the rights to license it to other hardware manufacturers, they created personal computing.

Of course I think I was typing PR#6 and playing ZORK because PCs cost too much at that time.

Lots of people "invent" lots of stuff. From nothing, and from existing materials. Personal computing encompasses a lot of things and you have not invented "personal computing" until you deliver it to the masses. Bill Gates and Microsoft did that, and empowered a whole lot of people over the years. More than Apple cared to, and more than anyone else was able to.

And let's not forget the impact of Lotus and Dbase or the Apple II. Bill Gates saying he was involved in inventing "personal computing" is analogous to Steve Jobs saying he invented the GUI. Neither is correct, neither is wrong, neither is lying. JMO.
 
Originally posted by cubist
On his "beliefs"?

"We invented personal computing" - Bill Gates

Most people figure personal computing started with the MITS Altair. Bill Gates was involved in writing a BASIC interpreter for that computer. Through the seventies, he lambasted hobbyists for copying it rather than buying it (it ran in 8K of memory, and cost $300 from Altair on paper tape). It was, of course, a clone of Dartmouth BASIC, which was well-known at the time. There were other BASICs available.

MS-DOS? Microsoft bought it from Seattle Computer Products.
Windows? It was a clone of the Macintosh that Bill started work on, even at the same time as he was trying to get Steve Jobs to license the Macintosh software.

I could go on. If Bill Gates truly believes he invented personal computing, he is delusional. It is safer and fairer to him to simply state that he is lying.
Click to expand...

Then, we could go further and say that Tim Paterson wrote 86-DOS, which became MS-DOS was a complete clone of CP/M for the 80x86 processor line.

If Gary Kildall, who founded Digital Research did not develop a universal operating system (CP/M) that would allow the same application to be run on different 8080/Z80 hardware, there would have been no DOS to clone and Bill Gates would still be selling his BASIC interpreter. He would still be arrogant, but he would hardly be rich.
 
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