Re: Byte Magazine: 18 Vintage issues, 1985-1986

[cturley2@aol.com (Cturley2)]

Special thanks to Luc Van der Veken for his online research efforts in
finding this 'RARE JEWEL'.   There's an open position awaiting you as;
Director of Online Research, with my GS WorldView online Ezine if you 
should ever wish to join the staff.  The letter follows below in full.

Cheers & Best Wishes,
Tom
-----------------------------------------------------------------�
������������AN OPEN LETTER TO HOBBYISTS
�
���������������February 3, 1976
�
������������By William Henry Gates III
�
�To me, the most critical thing in the hobby market right now is the 
lack of good software courses, books and software itself. Without good 
software and an owner who understands programming, a hobby computer is 
wasted. Will quality software be written for the hobby market? 
�
�Almost a year ago, Paul Allen and myself, expecting the hobby market to 
expand, hired Monte Davidoff and developed Altair BASIC. Though the 
initial work took only two months, the three of us have spent most of 
the last year documenting, improving and adding features to BASIC. Now 
we have 4K, 8K, EXTENDED, ROM and DISK BASIC. The value of the computer 
time we have used exceeds $40,000. 
�
�The feedback we have gotten from the hundreds of people who say they 
are using BASIC has all been positive. Two surprising things are 
apparent, however, 1)�Most of these "users" never bought BASIC (less 
than 10% of all Altair owners have bought BASIC), and 2) The amount of 
royalties we have received from sales to hobbyists makes the time spent 
on Altair BASIC worth less than $2 an hour. 
�
�Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you 
steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is 
something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid? 
�
�Is this fair? One thing you don't do by stealing software is get back 
at MITS for some problem you may have had. MITS doesn't make money 
selling software.�The royalty paid to us, the manual, the tape and the 
overhead make it a break-even operation. One thing you do do is prevent 
good software from being written. Who can afford to do professional work 
for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding 
all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free? The fact is, 
no one besides us has invested a lot of money in hobby software. We have 
written 6800 BASIC, and are writing 8080 APL and 6800 APL, but there is 
very little incentive to make this software available to hobbyists. Most 
directly, the thing you do is theft. 
�
�What about the guys who re-sell Altair BASIC, aren't they making money 
on hobby software? Yes, but those who have been reported to us may lose 
in the end. They are the ones who give hobbyists a bad name, and should 
be kicked out of any club meeting they show up at. 
�
�I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up, or has a 
suggestion or comment. Just write to me at 1180 Alvarado SE, #114, 
Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87108. Nothing would please me more than being 
able to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market with good 
software. 
�
����Bill Gates
�
����General Partner, Micro-Soft
------------------------------------------------------------------
-EOF-