paul allen

January 2, 1975: Bill Gates and Paul Allen BASIC for MITS

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 0102, aggregator, apple, Apple II, Apple II series, Art, BASIC, Bill Gates, Bob Frankston, business application, coleco, Computer hardware, computer line, dan bricklin, day in tech history, emc, ghz chips, historical events, intel, iTunes, killer app, Micro Instrumentation, Micro-soft, paul allen, Podcast, software arts, spreadsheet program, technology history, Telemetry System, visicalc, VisiCorp 0 Comments January 2, 2025

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1975 – Bill Gates and Paul Allen write a letter to the Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry System (MITS) stating they have BASIC language for the Intel 8080 processor and would like to incorporate on the Altair computer in exchange for royalty payments. MITS agrees and Micro-soft was born. Later it would become Microsoft.

Coleco sells Adam
Intel recalls 1.3 GHz chips
EMC purchases SourceLabs

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Day in Tech History/ Microsoft

December 7, 1978: Microsoft Staff Picture

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 1207, aggregator, andrea lewis, Bill Gates, bill-melinda-gates-foundation, bittorrent, bob greenberg, Bob Wallace, cabbage patch kids, day in tech history, few days, free button, historical events, marc mcdonald, marla wood, Microsoft, microsoft staff, Microsoft Windows, Mozilla Thunderbird, paul allen, Podcast, Recreation, star trek, star trek the motion picture, stitcher, technology history, thunderbird, twitter 0 Comments December 7, 2024

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1978 – It is one of the most infamous pictures in tech today. This is the Microsoft crew. Can you guess which one is Bill Gates?

The picture was updated in 2008 when the group (except Bob Wallace, who passed away in 2002) got back together for Bill Gates last few days at Microsoft (below).

The staff picture includes: Bill Gates, Andrea Lewis, Marla Wood, Paul Allen (2nd row) Bob O’Rear, Bob Greenberg (who helped launch Cabbage Patch Kids), Marc McDonald, Gordon Letwin, (3rd row) Steve Wood, Bob Wallace (passed away in 2002) and Jim Lane.

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Star Trek: The Motion Picture is released
Mozilla Thunderbird is released
Bittorrent has acquired uTorrent

Day in Tech History/ Geek

November 29, 1972: First Pong Machine

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 1129, aggregator, alcorn, Atari, Bill Gates, cappa, chimpanzee, co founder, day in tech history, founders, game, game designer, Geek, happy birthday, leo laporte, martin goldberg, mercury, mercury atlas, Microsoft, nolan bushnell, November 29, paul allen, Podcast, pong, pong game, roller rink, search deal, Table tennis, technology history, twitter, video game system, Yahoo 0 Comments November 29, 2024

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1972 – Andy Cappa’s tavern in CA was the site for the first Pong game was wheeled into the establishment. The coin-operated game was put in by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell and game designer Al Alcorn. The duo decided that making their own game – rather than having 3rd parties do it – would help keep costs down. They then turned an old Roller rink and converted to a production line. Pong was the first successful video game system.

Microsoft is first mentioned in a letter from Bill Gates to Paul Allen
Mercury-Atlas 5 carries the first chimpanzee into space
Microsoft starts talking to Yahoo again – this time on a search deal
Happy Birthday Leo Laporte

Day in Tech History/ Internet

September 28, 2011: Amazon Kindle Fire Debut

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 0928, aggregator, amazon store, Android, Bill Gates, british secret service, career change ability, edonkey, Facebook, IPad, james bond, jeff bezos, martini, netscape, next james bond, nishi, paul allen, Podcast, spies, technology history, this day in tech history 0 Comments September 28, 2024

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2011 – Jeff Bezos announces a new line of Kindle products including the Kindle Fire. This 10 inch tablet was Amazon’s rival to the iPad. It ran a version of Android that connected with Amazon store. The Fire would cost $199 and came with 30 days of Amazon Prime.

2008 – British Secret Service admitted they have been looking for the next agents. They mention that they have been looking far and wide for spies. That is why they went to Facebook. MI6 placed 3 ads on Facebook to look for people seeking career change.. ability to shake a good martini is preferred.

eDonkey shuts down
IE overtakes Netscape as the #1 browser
Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Kay Nishi accept new IBM contract

Day in Tech History/ Geek

July 22, 1988: Arrests of Fry Guy, Atlanta Three, Legion of Doom

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 0722, aggregator, amazon purchases, bell south, Bill Gates, circles, darden, day in tech history, federal prison, fry guy, hacker crackdown, historical events, Legion of Doom, Mac OS, mac os 8, mainframe, McDonald, McDonaldland, mcdonalds, paul allen, Podcast, robert riggs, secret service, technology history, telephone networks 0 Comments July 22, 2024

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Hacker Troll — July 22: Arrests of 3 hacking organizations

The Secret Service made some major breakthroughs in Hacking circles in 1989 as three members of the Legion of Doom were arrested. They were charged with hacking into Bell South’s Telephone Networks in 1988.

Franklin Darden, Adam grant and Robert Riggs would be sentenced to time in Federal prison.

The Secret Service also find out who “Fry Guy” is – the employee who hacked McDonalds mainframe for raises. It was part of the “Hacker Crackdown”.

Mac OS 8.0 is released
Bill Gates and Paul Allen sign the MITS agreement
Amazon purchases Zappos

Day in Tech History/ Microsoft

June 25, 1981: Microsoft Incorporates, Plans to Buy 86-DOS

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 0625, 30 million, 86-DOS, aggregator, AOL, Bill Gates, day in tech history, flood, Geek, geocities, Google, IBM Personal Computer, michael Jackson, Microsoft, Online Communities, paul allen, Podcast, pop star, reminiscence, Seattle Computer Products, Social Networking, steve ballmer, stitcher, technology history, twitter, United States, wikipedia 0 Comments June 25, 2024

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Microsoft

1981 – Microsoft goes through a restructure to incorporate in Washington. Bill Gates would become president, Paul Allen was Executive Vice President. Steve Ballmer would come on full-time with a $50,000 year salary.

The reason why they incorporated? On this same day, Paul Allen sends a proposal to Rod Black of Seattle Computer Products for Microsoft to purchase all rights to 86-DOS for $30,000. At that point, they had only a non-exclusive license (since September 22, 1980). This was a strategic move because Microsoft had a relationship with IBM, and wanted to re-license for the IBM PC.

After a month of negotiations, Seattle Computer agreed to the purchase for $50,000. However, that was not the end of it, as they found out of the IBM deal. They finally settled years later for $1 million.

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Michael Jackson brings Social Media Down
Geocities was hacked
AOL hits 30 million users

Day in Tech History/ Microsoft

April 21, 1977: MITS vs Bill Gates & Microsoft: 8080 BASIC

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 0421, Bill Gates, ghz pentium, Google, gotomeeting, Hertz, intel, letter, micro instrumentation and telemetry systems, Microsoft, MIT, mobile solution, paul allen, Personal computer, royalty, royalty payments, stitcher 0 Comments April 20, 2019

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April 21, 1977: Microsoft sends notice to MITS

1977 – Two days prior, Microsoft send MITS a letter with the allegation that they were not up on royalty payments and if they didn’t catch up, MITS would be in breach and the 8080 BASIC would be pulled. MITS sends a letter stating that they are not correct. Ultimately, this would begin a debate that would end in November when Microsoft pulled the 8080 BASIC out.

The Tanday 5000MC
Intel 3 GHz Pentium 4
Firefox 3.0.9 is released

Day in Tech History/ Software

April 20, 2009: Oracle Purchases Sun Microsystems

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 0420, acquisition, alignleft, attachment, Bill Gates, breach of contract, caption, compaq, dollar deal, Google, IBM, MySQL, New York City, oracle, paul allen, personal computers, sears roebuck, Solaris, SPARC, sparc processors, stitcher, stock, sun microsystems 0 Comments April 19, 2019

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2009 – Oracle announces they have purchased Sun Microsystems in a $7.4 billion dollar deal. This includes stock at $9.50 / share. That would also be the acquisition of SPARC processors, Solaris OS, Java and MySQL, among other items. The deal would be finalized on January 27th 2010.

Compaq and Sears-Roebuck offer Presario line of personal computers
Bill Gates and Paul Allen write the letter to MITS on breach of contract
IBM opens it’s first PC store in New York City

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