Here is a great interview with Bill Gates in 1986. He was 30 years old then. Microsoft was making software for personal computer, still a fairly small company and somewhat of a rebel compare to big corporate computer makers.

Bill Gates has talked at length about developing quality computer software and how a great team works. Many ideas are still relevant today. He was also very enthusiastic on the nascent CD ROM technology. Some of the cool application in his mind is like be able to look at a map of the United States, point somewhere, click, zoom in and say, “Hey, what hotels are around here?" He envision CD ROM will enable computer in competition with newspapers, books, and TV. "Every disk will have interactive games on it", the interactive nature of the device really excited him.

Windows 1.0

In the world of smartphone and tablet full capable of video and all kinds of applications, we have to step back to remind ourselves how the world was like in 1986. Windows 1.0 was a novelty then (Macintosh was released 2 years eariler). Personal computer was by and large just text based word processing and spreadsheet applications. Just seeing a picture on a computer will excite people. Computer video is probably not on anyone's horizon.

CD ROM did not turn out to take a prominent role in the history of computer development. Yet Bill Gates' vision of interactive, multimedia applications in the hand of everyone is realized and become part of our daily life today. It is really great to have a conversation back in time to see how far we have come.

2014.04.03 comments