Re: Computing Editorial (please read)

[Charles Richmond <richmond@ev1.net>]

"Dave Althoff, Jr." wrote:
> 
> In comp.sys.apple2 Charles Richmond <richmond@ev1.net> wrote:
> 
> : Bill Gates did *not* make his money by "his love and adequate knowledge
> : of computing". Bill Gates made his money by stealing other people's
> : ideas and marketing them. If Gates is anything, he is a marketing
> : person. *I* can blame Mr. Gates for being a billionaire, because he
> : made that money over the bodies of the others that he drove out of
> : the computer software business with his unfair business practices.
> : IMHO the computer world would be much better off *without* the
> : contributions of one Bill Gates.
> 
> The computer world would be better off without the contributions of Bill
> Gates and Microsoft except one:  I think Microsoft BASIC, and Applesoft
> BASIC in particular, are incredibly valuable to the development of the
> modern computer, because it was the hobbyists with their BASIC
> programming skills who came up with the "killer apps" that were later
> redone and turned into the packages that everybody uses today.  Opening
> up programming to "the masses" was, I think, critical to computer acceptance.
> 
That is assuming that some other person would *not* have come
up with a microcomputer BASIC. Personally, I think that someone
else would have developed a BASIC if Gates and company had *not*...

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|     Charles and Francis Richmond     <richmond@plano.net>   |
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