No. 005 · 1975 · Albuquerque

Microsoft

Sold software for a computer they'd never touched.

Software eats the PC

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  1. 1 1975. A magazine cover changes everything.
  2. 2 They call the maker: we have software for it!
  3. 3 They have no software.
  4. 4 Eight weeks. Written on an emulator.
  5. 5 On the plane, one realizes they forgot the loader.
  6. 6 First run on the real machine. Nobody breathes.
  7. 7 It works. First try.
  8. 8 A computer on every desk.
Founders
Bill Gates and Paul Allen
Founded
1975, Albuquerque
What they do
Windows, Office, Azure and a lot of everything else.

The story

Gates and Allen told the makers of the Altair they were developing BASIC for it before writing a line. They built it on an emulator in about two months, and it ran the first time they tried it on the real machine.