Subject:
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Re: When Bill Gates dies
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.geek
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Date:
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Fri, 10 Aug 2001 14:16:28 GMT
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Viewed:
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149 times
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Steven Lane wrote:
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> When Bill Gates dies will he receive any postumous plaudits or will there be
> dancing in the streets? I'd go for the latter.
I think I'd vote for both. While many hate Microsoft and Gates, Gates
may be the single individual with the most responsibility towards the
"computer in every household (or close to it)" environment we have
today. Without Microsoft, we probably would not have a standard system
architechture. Without Microsoft, many folks in the 70s may not have
gone very far programming (how many of us cut our teeth on Microsoft
BASIC, either on a CPM system, Apple II, or IBM PC, or any of the other
several platfomrs it was available on?). While we may also hate the
dominance of Windows, I think it is also valuable again in creating a
single platform. That doesn't diminish the value of competition, but I
think overall that it is good that most of us use the same platform.
This means that software is cheaper, better (both in feature set and in
stableness), and more available. One also should remember that Gates has
been in the PC buisiness effectively since the begginning (remember that
his BASIC was one of the first programs to run on the Altair 8800 - and
lest you feel Gates had no technical ability, note that this BASIC ran
correctly the first time on the real hardware - Gates and Allen did not
have an Altair 8800, though they simulated it on a PDP-10). While one
should not diminish the other pioneers efforts (after all, what would
PCs be without the PC?), Gate's drive, vision, and natural buisiness
accumen clearly propelled him to the top.
--
Frank Filz
-----------------------------
Work: mailto:ffilz@us.ibm.com (business only please)
Home: mailto:ffilz@mindspring.com
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | When Bill Gates dies
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| When Bill Gates dies will he receive any postumous plaudits or will there be dancing in the streets? I'd go for the latter. Steve Knowing our luck he'll probably be cryogenically frozen and later revived. (23 years ago, 9-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)
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