From the history of Microsoft (part 1)
From my blog: https://j.ludost.net/blog/archives/2020/10/03/from_the_history_of_microsoft_... Markdown source follows.
From the history of Microsoft (part 1)
by Georgi Guninski Sat 03 Oct 2020 08:51:30 AM UTC, version 1.0 History is written by the winners, so here we write: --- * [Microsoft accidentally distributes virus July 28, 2002](https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-accidentally-distributes-virus/) The software giant's Korean-language version of Visual Studio .Net carries the virulent Nimda computer virus to Asia. --- * [Ballmer: 'Linux is a cancer' Sat 2 Jun 2001](https://www.theregister.com/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_cancer/) Contaminates all other software with Hippie GPL rubbish. Microsoft CEO and incontinent over-stater of facts Steve Ballmer said that "Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches," during a commercial spot masquerading as a interview with the Chicago Sun-Times on June 1, 2001. --- * [Halloween documents: August 1998 - March 2004](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Halloween_documents&oldid=971686391). The Halloween documents comprise a series of confidential Microsoft memoranda on potential strategies relating to free software, open-source software, and to Linux in particular, and a series of media responses to these memoranda. Both the leaked documents and the responses were published by Eric S. Raymond in 1998. --- * [Bill Gates is an android user: 26 Sep 2017](https://www.theregister.com/2017/09/26/bill_gates_android_user/) **%**RIP Windows Phone, we are not crying much. --- * [Weird garbled Windows 7 update baffles world – now Microsoft reveals the truth: 30 Sep 2015](https://www.theregister.com/2015/09/30/windows_update_glitch/) Its description mostly contained garbled text. Links for more information, help, and support were filled in with gibberish URLs with ".gov," ".mil," and ".edu" domains. --- * [m$ is linux vendor: 27 Jun 2019](https://www.theregister.com/2019/06/27/microsoft_linux_distro_list/) 2001: Linux is cancer, says Microsoft. 2019: Hey friends, ah, can we join the official linux-distros mailing list, plz? We tried to [speak up](https://seclists.org/oss-sec/2019/q3/8), the oss vendor crowd liked m$. --- * Closed source, source leaked and widely open. Possibly to fit Microsoft better in the so called open source community, unknown forces [leaked m$' sources](https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q=windows%20source%20leaked). [MS hacked! Russian mafia swipes WinME source? 27 Oct 2000](https://www.theregister.com/2000/10/27/ms_hacked_russian_mafia_swipes/)
20 years was too long OS fight. Against a single easy corporate target. Cryptocurrency has much bigger task and destiny. Code, and action, harder.
On Saturday, October 3, 2020, 04:42:00 AM PDT, Georgi Guninski <gguninski@gmail.com> wrote:
From my blog: https://j.ludost.net/blog/archives/2020/10/03/from_the_history_of_microsoft_...
Markdown source follows.
From the history of Microsoft (part 1)
by Georgi Guninski Sat 03 Oct 2020 08:51:30 AM UTC, version 1.0
My little tidbit of Microsoft history. In about January 1976, a friend/co-worker of my father (his name was Vern Stevenson, the company was Marley Inc, maker of Cooling Towers) drove me to one of the hotels nearby relatively new KCI (Kansas City International Airport), for a small meeting. Some people from MITS (that's Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems) were doing a demonstration of the MITS Altair computer, This was a bit more than one year after the appearance of the Altair computer on thehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Electronics | | | | | | | | | | | Popular Electronics A cover story on Popular Electronics could launch a new product or company. The most famous issue, January 1975,... | | | The Altair had generally been seen as the initial step of the 'personal computer' era. (although I recall a different computer called a "Jolt" http://retro.hansotten.nl/6502-sbc/jolt-and-super-jolt/jolt/ being advertised for a year or so. Although, I don't know if my recollection is wrong, it said this came out in December 1975.) I think it was about $500, but every feature was 'extra'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800 No keyboard, no display (other than a few dozen LEDs on the front), just a few switches on the front. And, for a year or more, the price of USED teletypes went up to about $1000, because they provided the all-important keyboard, printer, and even a paper-tape punch and reader. The initial design didn't even include a bus, although a quick design resulted in the execrable S-100 bus, apparently "designed" by a person who didn't know how to design computer buses, or didn't even know what a "bus" was for! During the January 1976 KCI meeting, they talked about a 4K byte Basic interpreter. They said that the supplier, "Microsoft" (which at that time was probably 2-3 people) sold the source code for the Basic for about $4,000. I can remember being very UNIMPRESSED at that price. Not too many years later, I decided i had made a mistake by NOT buying one of the Altairs. But I was cheap (though I had the money!), and the first computer I bought was a single-board trainer called the "Dyna-Micro". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-board_computer Later called the "MMD-1". Jim Bell
On 2020-09-25 leaker **billgates3** [wrote](https://thehackernews.com/2020/09/windows-xp-source-code.html), adding insult to injury:
"I created this torrent for the community, as I believe information should be free and available to everyone, and hoarding information for oneself and keeping it secret is an evil act in my opinion," the leaker said, adding that the company "claims to love open source so then I guess they'll love how open this source code is now that it's passed around on BitTorrent."
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participants (3)
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Georgi Guninski -
grarpamp -
jim bell