Re: Computing Editorial (please read)

["Dave Althoff, Jr." <dalloff@gcfn.org>]

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.

Of course now the last thing Microsoft wants you to be able to do is to 
program the computer yourself.....

--Dave Althoff, ][.
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