Bill Gates Gospel

Reading Between the Lines: Intelligence Gathering in the Modern World

And The Bill Gates Gospel

this column origianlly appeared in Microtimes circa 1990. Copyright 1990-2004 John C. Dvorak. Gates has ceased doing these sorts of meetings.

by John C. Dvorak

Much of the gossip and inside stuff in this business is obtained through the old fashioned grapevine whereby someone tells someone who tells someone who tells me. The best inside information, though, is researched. I like to scan obscure periodicals and journals for interesting articles. The best of these periodicals, for this business, are the many users group magazines. While many of the articles in a Users Group publication are of a specialized nature of interest only to the locals and members of the club, a few of the publications provide transcripts or overviews of speakers talks. Some groups even sell fascinating tape recordings. Many illustrious industry types sometimes say things in front of a users group that they would never tell the most dogged reporter.

Sometimes some wild assertions are made too. When these are exposed to the public at large the truth quickly emerges as a reader comes forth and tells the real story. Needless to say, I love plowing through these transcripts.

This month I'm going to look at The New York PC Users Group and its nifty newsletter -- one I recommend to all. Besides transcribing the guest speakers talk (peppered with much needed critical analysis) the magazine has a superb columnist, Pat Adams (aka deep disk) who will eventually find his way into the mainstream press if wants to. He writes a gossipy news/insiders column that specialized in baiting Ashton-Tate and, to a lesser degree, Lotus.

Recently, NYPC had Bill Gates as a speaker and recently Microsoft invited NYPC and a slug of other users groups to Washington State to propagandize them. The reports from the Washington meeting and the transcript from Gates revealed a number of fascinating comments.

Let me outline the most interesting quotes (in no particular order) and let's see what's up.

Bill Gates Quotes:

ON THE 80386: "However, the 80386, which Microsoft had an influential role in, is not the final word. Intel is now working very closely with us to come up with a new instruction set processor that will go beyond the 80386."

Later he says, "I think Intel's done a great job. It's 80386 is a fantastic chip, and we have a very close relationship with Intel working on its next chip."

ON IBM AND OS/2 GATES SAYS: "Microsoft was successful in convincing IBM that the key improvement needed was graphics capability, so the PS/2s incorporate high resolution graphics called VGA."

"I don't use the PC mouse at all."

"OS/2 error messages are very extensive; there's 100 times more error message text in OS/2 than there is in MS-DOS."

"When I partitioned the one megabyte memory space as 384K for dedicated things and 640K for general RAM, I didn't expect us to run out so quickly."

"There's no code in OS/2 that looks for the MicroChannel."

ON THE MACINTOSH AND OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:

"We actually started our software development on the Macintosh over a year before the machine was introduced, and had more software people working on that project than even Apple did."

"We believe some of the central ideas of the Macintosh interface were fundamentally correct."

"We're working on a machine that produces full motion video with a quality better than your TV set."

Listening to this stuff I figure that pretty soon Gates will pull a Steve Jobs and say he invented the personal computer. Meanwhile, he's telling IBM, Apple and Intel how to do it right. I guess somebody's got to do it. While Gates was obviously influential in the design of the original IBM PC with its cassette port and ROM MS-BASIC, it's interesting to talk to Bill Millard former head of Computerland. Computerland was chosen by IBM to figure out what was wrong with the PC from the users perspective. Apparently a lot of changes were made. When the PCjr, portable PC and other IBM clunkers came out, no such input was requested so it is assumed that Microsoft and IBM showed their true abilities. I have never been able to determine what the original IBM PC was like before the Computerland suggestions.

The cassette port and ROM-BASIC is an indication that it wasn't so hot.

But no matter, besides the constant self-congratulations, we do get some juicy tidbits here. Mainly that Intel is designing something totally new. Rumor has it that Intel (and Motorola) are designing some high speed RISC chips for the next generation of PC's. It will be important to have a lot of software for such a chip. Especially important and much needed will be emulation software so the thing can work like a 80386 too. Microsoft is a candidate for this project and it's logical that they'd have something to say to the chip designers. From the sounds of it, though, Microsoft has a guy working at Intel.

The other interesting tidbit in amongst the quotes has it that Microsoft has hopes of reviving dead dreams of the home market. The company was heavily involved in a recent fizzle called MSX -- the last great hope of the home market. Running Microsoft software and having a common bus, the MSX machines were last ditch Japanese Z-80's that were to attack the market right in the middle of the IBM PC phenomenon. The last I heard of it was a few years ago when a guy said, "MSX isn't dead. MSX-II is incredible and will save it." The guy who told me this is now a toll taker on the New Jersey Turnpike.

THAT'S the fate of people who believe everything they are told by the honchos of large companies.

---end

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	Reading Between the Lines: Intelligence Gathering in the Modern World And The Bill Gates Gospel		this column origianlly appeared in Microtimes circa 1990. Copyright 1990-2004 John C. Dvorak. Gates has ceased doing these sorts of meetings.
	by John C. Dvorak Much of the gossip and inside stuff in this business is obtained through the old fashioned grapevine whereby someone tells someone who tells someone who tells me. The best inside information, though, is researched. I like to scan obscure periodicals and journals for interesting articles. The best of these periodicals, for this business, are the many users group magazines. While many of the articles in a Users Group publication are of a specialized nature of interest only to the locals and members of the club, a few of the publications provide transcripts or overviews of speakers talks. Some groups even sell fascinating tape recordings. Many illustrious industry types sometimes say things in front of a users group that they would never tell the most dogged reporter. Sometimes some wild assertions are made too. When these are exposed to the public at large the truth quickly emerges as a reader comes forth and tells the real story. Needless to say, I love plowing through these transcripts. This month I'm going to look at The New York PC Users Group and its nifty newsletter -- one I recommend to all. Besides transcribing the guest speakers talk (peppered with much needed critical analysis) the magazine has a superb columnist, Pat Adams (aka deep disk) who will eventually find his way into the mainstream press if wants to. He writes a gossipy news/insiders column that specialized in baiting Ashton-Tate and, to a lesser degree, Lotus. Recently, NYPC had Bill Gates as a speaker and recently Microsoft invited NYPC and a slug of other users groups to Washington State to propagandize them. The reports from the Washington meeting and the transcript from Gates revealed a number of fascinating comments. Let me outline the most interesting quotes (in no particular order) and let's see what's up. Bill Gates Quotes: ON THE 80386: "However, the 80386, which Microsoft had an influential role in, is not the final word. Intel is now working very closely with us to come up with a new instruction set processor that will go beyond the 80386." Later he says, "I think Intel's done a great job. It's 80386 is a fantastic chip, and we have a very close relationship with Intel working on its next chip." ON IBM AND OS/2 GATES SAYS: "Microsoft was successful in convincing IBM that the key improvement needed was graphics capability, so the PS/2s incorporate high resolution graphics called VGA." "I don't use the PC mouse at all." "OS/2 error messages are very extensive; there's 100 times more error message text in OS/2 than there is in MS-DOS." "When I partitioned the one megabyte memory space as 384K for dedicated things and 640K for general RAM, I didn't expect us to run out so quickly." "There's no code in OS/2 that looks for the MicroChannel." *ON THE MACINTOSH AND OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:* "We actually started our software development on the Macintosh over a year before the machine was introduced, and had more software people working on that project than even Apple did." "We believe some of the central ideas of the Macintosh interface were fundamentally correct." "We're working on a machine that produces full motion video with a quality better than your TV set." Listening to this stuff I figure that pretty soon Gates will pull a Steve Jobs and say he invented the personal computer. Meanwhile, he's telling IBM, Apple and Intel how to do it right. I guess somebody's got to do it. While Gates was obviously influential in the design of the original IBM PC with its cassette port and ROM MS-BASIC, it's interesting to talk to Bill Millard former head of Computerland. Computerland was chosen by IBM to figure out what was wrong with the PC from the users perspective. Apparently a lot of changes were made. When the PCjr, portable PC and other IBM clunkers came out, no such input was requested so it is assumed that Microsoft and IBM showed their true abilities. I have never been able to determine what the original IBM PC was like before the Computerland suggestions. The cassette port and ROM-BASIC is an indication that it wasn't so hot. But no matter, besides the constant self-congratulations, we do get some juicy tidbits here. Mainly that Intel is designing something totally new. Rumor has it that Intel (and Motorola) are designing some high speed RISC chips for the next generation of PC's. It will be important to have a lot of software for such a chip. Especially important and much needed will be emulation software so the thing can work like a 80386 too. Microsoft is a candidate for this project and it's logical that they'd have something to say to the chip designers. From the sounds of it, though, Microsoft has a guy working at Intel. The other interesting tidbit in amongst the quotes has it that Microsoft has hopes of reviving dead dreams of the home market. The company was heavily involved in a recent fizzle called MSX -- the last great hope of the home market. Running Microsoft software and having a common bus, the MSX machines were last ditch Japanese Z-80's that were to attack the market right in the middle of the IBM PC phenomenon. The last I heard of it was a few years ago when a guy said, "MSX isn't dead. MSX-II is incredible and will save it." The guy who told me this is now a toll taker on the New Jersey Turnpike. THAT'S the fate of people who believe everything they are told by the honchos of large companies. ---end Back to Lost Columns archive