Just some stuff I have heard over the years…

Microsoft originally marketed a spreadsheet program called Multiplan in 1982 but almost everyone used Lotus 1-2-3 on MS-DOS systems. At that same time Steve Jobs was forced off the Apple Lisa project and was put on the Macintosh team after Wozniak was in a terrible plane crash.

Bill Gates personally flew down to talk to Jobs about his new concept to evolve Multiplan into Excel. The argument was that Macintosh would be a failure without an application and Jobs did not have the resources to develop one in time for launch. Jobs gave Gates a complete copy of the Macintosh specification.

After his return to Redmond the best programmers at Microsoft were split into two teams. One team was to make Excel for the Macintosh and the second team, unbeknownst to Apple, used a copy of the specification to create Windows. Bill’s exact words were allegedly “Copy this!” Microsoft made an announcement in November 1983 that it would have a “Windows” operating system at some time.

Apple released the original Macintosh on January 24, 1984 with the now infamous super bowl commercial. However, it took Microsoft almost two years to finally release Windows 1.0 in November 1985. Bill was so stressed over the late release that he started blocking the entrance to Microsoft with his car to keep developers working at night.

However, eventually Microsoft made a pretty good operating system and had several meetings with Intel on how to take advantage of the Pentium architecture. They did that with the release of Windows 3.1 in 1992 but Intel and Microsoft also found a new problem.

Intel knew processor speeds were going to double every couple years and they hatched a plan with Microsoft to slow down the operating system in certain areas to force users to keep buying computers and new versions of Windows. They also had hooks to slow down computers based on Motorola and AMD processors. This was later confirmed by the Seattle Times and court cases.

As an aside, at that same time the government was contacting every hardware and software company forcing them to put serial numbers into processors, other hardware, printers and images. But that’s another story.

Microsoft knew the spaghetti code of Windows would only take them so far. So when they released Windows in 1985 they also started a joint development with IBM to create OS/2. And of course, Microsoft being Microsoft had yet another team called “NT” to create a new technology 100% owned by Microsoft. Basically they copied all the best parts of Windows for MS-DOS and OS/2 to create a new operating system that is the core of the current Windows versions.