|
Bill Gates |
| Computer engineer,
entrepreneur; born in Seattle, Wash. At age 15, he constructed a device
to control traffic patterns in Seattle. I
n 1975, he co-wrote a compiler for BASIC and interested the MITS company in it. He dropped out of Harvard in 1975 to spend his time writing programs. In 1977, he cofounded Microsoft to develop and produce DOS, his basic operating system for computers; when in 1981 International Business Machines (IBM) adopted DOS for its line of personal computers, his company took a giant step forward; by 1983 he had licensed DOS to more than 100 vendors, making it the dominant operating system. A brilliant entrepreneur and a benevolent employer, by age 35 he had become one of the wealthiest men in America. |