The Newsstand That Launched Microsoft is Closing
A famous story in the history of Bill Gates and Microsoft takes place while the future billionaire is in college. One day Paul Allen shows his Lakeside buddy a 1974 issue of Popular Electronics.
Here's how it's described in a 1994 New Yorker piece:
Gates and Allen sometimes talked about how cool it would be to design the software for the first personal computer, which appeared to be on the horizon... The question was settled in dramatic fashion in December, 1974, when Allen, who was working in Boston, passed a newsstand in Harvard Square and saw on the cover of Popular Electronics a computer called the Altair 8800. The Altair 8800 was the first computer that ordinary electronics hobbyists could afford to buy and that people with reasonable technical knowledge could assemble in their homes. Basically, it was the first personal computer. Allen bought the magazine, rushed over to Gates' dorm, and showed it to him. "Look!" Allen said. "It's going to happen! I told you this was going to happen! And we're going to miss it!"
And here's how it's described in a 1995 quote from Gates:
"The past twenty years have been an incredible adventure for me. It started on a day when, as a college sophomore, I stood in Harvard Square with my friend Paul Allen and pored over the description of a kit computer in Popular Electronics magazine."
Whatever exactly happened, there's no doubt that Allen spied that magazine at the iconic Out of Town News, located in Harvard Square. Today brings news that it's shutting down, a victim no doubt of the industry that Gates and Allen helped to launch.
2 comment(s)
Don Ward says:
That and high B&O taxes and increased rent.
Posted On: Wednesday, Nov. 19 2008 @ 2:37PM
Anonymous says:
ghmjgmgj
Posted On: Wednesday, Nov. 18 2009 @ 12:10AM