Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote BASIC for the Altair 8800 in eight weeks, founding Microsoft on the strength of one demo

Did you know Microsoft was born in just eight weeks?

Imagine you're trying to teach a computer to understand simple commands without a complex language.

Picture Bill Gates and Paul Allen as two friends who quickly figured out a way to make a computer speak a common language, allowing it to do basic tasks easily.

Example

They created BASIC, a simple language that made it easier for anyone to program a computer.

Remember this

They invented BASIC, simplifying computer programming for everyone.

Text adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Related concepts

Steve Wozniak designed the Apple I single-handedly; Jobs convinced him to sell it instead of giving the schematics away free

Did Steve Wozniak really build the Apple I alone?

Universal Turing machine

Alan Turing introduced the Turing machine in 1936

1991 Soviet coup attempt

Did you know the first website was born amidst a failed coup?

Jensen Huang

Jensen Huang co-founded Nvidia in a Denny's in 1993

Sergey Brin

Sergey Brin and Larry Page founded Google in 1998

Colossus computer

Did you know the first computer was built to crack secret codes?

Swipe through 100 ML concepts daily

Open Pocket Polymath