Before you read:
- 1. Who is the person in the picture?
- 2. What do you know about him?
Bill Gates
William Henry Gates (Bill Gates), cofounder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Microsoft, was born in Seattle in 1955. In 1970, he created his first software company with his classmate Paul Allen. In 1975, they began to design programs for personal computers and in the same year, they co-founded Microsoft, the world's largest developer and publisher of software programs for personal computers.
In 1980, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) chose Microsoft to develop the operating system for its first personal computer, the PC. An operating system is a special type of program that contains instructions for the operation of the computer. Gates devised the Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS-DOS) for IBM. Millions of copies of MS-DOS were sold for use in IBM and IBM-compatible PC's.
Under Bill Gates' supervision, Microsoft continued to develop and expand. In 1985, the company started its PC programs called Windows. These innovative programs make it possible for the users to perform multiple tasks through "windows" on the computer screen and to issue commands by pointing at symbols on the screen instead of typing instructions.
Language & Reference
b) Match the dates with the appropriate events.
- a. Bill Gates and Paul Allen created Microsoft.
- b. Bill Gates' year of birth.
- c. Bill Gates created Windows.
- d. Microsoft started working for IBM.
- e. Bill Gates and Paul Allen created their first company.
c) What do these acronyms stand for?
d) The words below are underlined in the text. What do they refer to?
True or False
e) Write T (true) or F (false) in the appropriate box.
1. Microsoft is a company that designs computers.
2. IBM created MS-DOS.
3. Before the invention of windows, computer users had to type instructions.