The Innovators
68. Kay, “The Early History of Smalltalk” (see section IV, “The First Real Smalltalk”); author’s interviews with Alan Kay and Bob Taylor; Hiltzik, Dealers of Lightning, 3128; Markoff, What the Dormouse Said, 3940; Butler Lampson, “Why Alto?” Xerox interoffice memo, Dec. 19, 1972, http://www.digibarn.com/friends/butler-lampson/.
69. Author’s interview with Bob Taylor; Thacker, “Personal Distributed Computing.”
70. Engelbart Oral History, Stanford, interview 4, Apr. 1, 1987.
71. Author’s interview with Bob Taylor.
72. Alan Kay interview, conducted by Kate Kane, Perspectives on Business Innovation, May 2002.
73. Bob Taylor discussion, University of Texas, Sept. 17, 2009, conducted by John Markoff, http://transcriptvids.com/v/jvbGAPJSDJI.html.
74. Author’s interview with Bob Taylor; Hiltzik, Dealers of Lightning, 4834.
75. Fred Moore’s tale is detailed in Levy’s Hackers and Markoff’s What the Dormouse Said.
76. Author’s interview with Lee Felsenstein.
77. Video of the Whole Earth Demise Party, http://mediaburn.org/video/aspects-of-demise-the-whole-earth-demise-party-2/; Levy, Hackers, 197; author’s interview with Stewart Brand; Stewart Brand, “Demise Party, etc.,” http://www.wholeearth.com/issue/1180/article/321/history.-.demise.party.etc.
78. Markoff, What the Dormouse Said, 3335.
79. In addition to the sources just cited, see Thomas Albright and Charles Moore, “The Last Twelve Hours of the Whole Earth,” Rolling Stone, July 8, 1971; Barry Lopez, “Whole Earth’s Suicide Party,” Washington Post, June 14, 1971.
80. Author’s interview with Bob Albrecht; Albrecht’s notes provided to me.
81. Archive of the People’s Computer Company and its related newsletters, http://www.digibarn.com/collections/newsletters/peoples-computer/.
82. Author’s interview with Bob Albrecht.
83. Author’s interview with Lee Felsenstein. This section is also based on a seventeen-chapter unpublished memoir Felsenstein wrote, which he provided to me; Felsenstein’s articles “Tom Swift Lives!” and “Convivial Design” in People’s Computer Company; his article “My Path through the Free Speech Movement and Beyond,” February 22, 2005, which he provided to me; the autobiographical essays he has posted at http://www.leefelsenstein.com/; Freiberger and Swaine, Fire in the Valley, 99–102; Levy, Hackers, 153 and passim; Markoff, What the Dormouse Said, 4375 and passim.
84. Author’s interview with Lee Felsenstein.
85. Author’s interview with Felsenstein; Lee Felsenstein, “Philadelphia 1945–1963,” http://www.leefelsenstein.com/?page_id=16; oral history of Lee Felsenstein, by Kip Crosby, May 7, 2008, Computer History Museum.
86. Felsenstein, “My Path through the Free Speech Movement and Beyond.”
87. Author’s interview with Lee Felsenstein.
88. Felsenstein, “My Path through the Free Speech Movement and Beyond.”
89. Author’s interview with Lee Felsenstein; Felsenstein unpublished memoir.
90. Felsenstein’s unpublished memoir, provided to me, has an entire chapter on the police radio incident.
91. Felsenstein, “My Path through the Free Speech Movement and Beyond.”
92. Lee Felsenstein, “Explorations in the Underground,” http://www.leefelsenstein.com/?page_id=50.
93. Author’s interview with Lee Felsenstein.
94. Author’s interview with Lee Felsenstein; Felsenstein’s unpublished memoir.
95. Author’s interview with Lee Felsenstein.
96. Levy, Hackers, 160.
97. Ken Colstad and Efrem Lipkin, “Community Memory: A Public Information Network,” ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society, Dec. 1975. For an archive of the Resource One Newsletter, see http://www.well.com/~szpak/cm/index.html.
98. Doug Schuler, “Community Networks: Building a New Participatory Medium,” Communications of the ACM, Jan. 1994. See also Community Memory flyer, on The WELL, http://www.well.com/~szpak/cm/cmflyer.html: “We have a powerful tool—a genie—at our disposal.”
99. R. U. Sirius and St. Jude, How to Mutate and Take Over the World (Ballantine, 1996); Betsy Isaacson, “St. Jude,” undergraduate thesis, Harvard University, 2012.
100. Lee Felsenstein, “Resource One/Community Memory,” http://www.leefelsenstein.com/?page_id=44.
101. Author’s interview with Lee Felsenstein; Felsenstein, “Resource One/Community Memory.”
102. Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality (Harper, 1973), 17.
103. Author’s interview with Lee Felsenstein.
104. Lee Felsenstein, “The Maker Movement—Looks Like Revolution to Me,” speech at Bay Area Maker Faire, May 18, 2013. See also Evgeny Morozov, “Making It,” New Yorker, Jan. 13, 2014.
105. Lee Felsenstein, “Tom Swift Terminal, or a Convivial Cybernetic Device,” http://www.leefelsenstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/TST_scan_150.pdf; Lee Felsenstein, “Social Media Technology,” http://www.leefelsenstein.com/?page_id=125.
106. Homebrew Computer Club newsletter #1, DigiBarn Computer Museum, http://www.digibarn.com/collections/newsletters/homebrew/V1_01/; Levy, Hackers, 167.
107. Lee Felsenstein’s comments on my crowdsourced first draft, Medium.com, Dec. 20, 2013. There is no evidence that any of Eisenhower’s personal pilots ever had a sex change.
108. This section draws from Ed Roberts interview, conducted by Art Salsberg, Modern Electronics, Oct. 1984; Ed Roberts interview, conducted by David Greelish, Historically Brewed magazine, 1995; Levy, Hackers, 186 and passim; Forrest M. Mims III, “The Altair Story: Early Days at MITS,” Creative Computing, Nov. 1984; Freiberger and Swaine, Fire in the Valley, 35 and passim.
109. Levy, Hackers, 186.
110. Mims, “The Altair Story.”
111. Levy, Hackers, 187.
112. Levy, Hackers, 187.
113. Les Solomon, “Solomon’s Memory,” Atari Archives, http://www.atariarchives.org/deli/solomons_memory.php; Levy, Hackers, 189 and passim; Mims, “The Altair Story.”
114. H. Edward Roberts and William Yates, “Altair 8800 Minicomputer,” Popular Electronics, Jan. 1975.
115. Author’s interview with Bill Gates.
116. Michael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson, “Crystal Fire,” IEEE SCS News, Spring 2007, adapted from Crystal Fire (Norton, 1977).
117. Author’s interviews with Lee Felsenstein, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and Bob Albrecht. This section also draws from the accounts of the Homebrew Computer Club origins in Wozniak, iWoz (Norton, 2006); Markoff, What the Dormouse Said, 4493 and passim; Levy, Hackers, 201 and passim; Freiberger and Swaine, Fire in the Valley, 109 and passim; Steve Wozniak, “Homebrew and How the Apple Came to Be,” http://www.atariarchives.org/deli/homebrew_and_how_the_apple.php; the Homebrew archives exhibit at the Computer History Museum; the Homebrew newsletter archives, http://www.digibarn.com/collections/newsletters/homebrew/; Bob Lash, “Memoir of a Homebrew Computer Club Member,” http://www.bambi.net/bob/homebrew.html.
118. Steve Dompier, “Music of a Sort,” Peoples Computer Company, May 1975. See also Freiberger and Swaine, Fire in the Valley, 129; Levy, Hackers, 204. For Dompier’s code, see http://kevindriscoll.org/projects/ccswg2012/fool_on_a_hill.html.
119. Bill Gates, “Software Contest Winners Announced,” Computer Notes, July 1975.
CHAPTER NINE: SOFTWARE
1. Author’s interview with Bill Gates; Paul Allen, Idea Man (Portfolio, 2011, locations refer to the Kindle edition), 129. This section also draws from a formal interview in 2013 and other conversations I had with Bill Gates; the time I spent with him, his father, and colleagues for a Time cover story I wrote, “In Search of the Real Bill Gates,” Time, Jan. 13, 1997; emails from Bill Gates Sr.; Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, Gates (Doubleday, 1993, locations refer to Kindle edition); James Wallace and Jim Erickson, Hard Drive (Wiley, 1992); Bill Gates oral history, conducted by Mark Dickison, Henry Ford Innovation Series, June 30, 2009; Bill Gates interview, conducted by David Allison, Smithsonian Instituti
on, Apr. 1995; other nonpublic oral histories provided by Bill Gates.
2. Wallace and Erickson, Hard Drive, 38.
3. Allen, Idea Man, 1069.
4. Author’s interview with Bill Gates. See also Bill Gates oral history, Ford Innovation Series.
5. Isaacson, “In Search of the Real Bill Gates.”
6. Isaacson, “In Search of the Real Bill Gates.”
7. Author’s interview with Bill Gates Sr.
8. Manes and Andrews, Gates, 715.
9. Author’s interview with Bill Gates Sr. The law says: “A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.”
10. Manes and Andrews, Gates, 583, 659.
11. Author’s interview with Bill Gates Sr.
12. Wallace and Erickson, Hard Drive, 21.
13. Author’s interview with Bill Gates.
14. Allen, Idea Man, 502.
15. Wallace and Erickson, Hard Drive, 25.
16. Allen, Idea Man, 511.
17. Wallace and Erickson, Hard Drive, 26.
18. Allen, Idea Man, 751.
19. Author’s interview with Bill Gates; Isaacson, “In Search of the Real Bill Gates.”
20. Author’s interview with Bill Gates. (Also in other oral histories.)
21. Manes and Andrews, Gates, 924.
22. Author’s interviews with Bill Gates and Bill Gates Sr.
23. Author’s interview with Steve Russell.
24. Wallace and Erickson, Hard Drive, 31.
25. Author’s interview with Bill Gates.
26. Allen, Idea Man, 616; author’s interviews with Steve Russell and Bill Gates.
27. Author’s interview with Bill Gates.
28. Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine, Fire in the Valley (Osborne, 1984), 21; author’s interview with Bill Gates; Wallace and Erickson, Hard Drive, 35.
29. Allen, Idea Man, 719.
30. Wallace and Erickson, Hard Drive, 42.
31. Author’s interview with Bill Gates; Isaacson, “In Search of the Real Bill Gates.”
32. Author’s interview with Bill Gates; Bill Gates oral history with Larry Cohen and Brent Schlender, provided to me by Bill Gates.
33. Wallace and Erickson, Hard Drive, 43.
34. Author’s interviews with Bill Gates.
35. Allen, Idea Man, 811.
36. Wallace and Erickson, Hard Drive, 43.
37. Author’s interview with Bill Gates; Allen, Idea Man, 101.
38. Author’s interview with Bill Gates; Allen, Idea Man, 849.
39. Allen, Idea Man, 860.
40. Wallace and Erickson, Hard Drive, 45; Manes and Andrews, Gates, 458.
41. Manes and Andrews, Gates, 1445; Allen, Idea Man, 917; author’s interview with Bill Gates.
42. Allen, Idea Man, 942.
43. Author’s interview with Bill Gates.
44. Allen, Idea Man, 969.
45. Wallace and Erickson, Hard Drive, 55. An earlier version of this section was published in the Harvard Gazette, and the current version reflects comments and corrections made by Gates and others on it.
46. Author’s interview with Bill Gates.
47. Nicholas Josefowitz, “College Friends Remember Bill Gates,” Harvard Crimson, June 4, 2002.
48. Manes and Andrews, Gates, 1564.
49. “Bill Gates to Sign Off at Microsoft,” AFP, June 28, 2008.
50. William H. Gates and Christos P. Papadimitriou, “Bounds for Sorting by Prefix Reversal,” Discrete Mathematics, 1979; Harry Lewis, “Reinventing the Classroom,” Harvard Magazine, Sept. 2012; David Kestenbaum, “Before Microsoft, Gates Solved a Pancake Problem,” NPR, July 4, 2008.
51. Allen, Idea Man, 62.
52. Author’s interview with Bill Gates.
53. Allen, Idea Man, 1058.
54. Author’s interview with Bill Gates.
55. Bill Gates and Paul Allen to Ed Roberts, Jan. 2, 1975; Manes and Andrews, Gates, 1810.
56. Allen, Idea Man, 160.
57. Allen, Idea Man, 1103.
58. Manes and Andrews, Gates, 1874.
59. Author’s interview with Bill Gates; Allen, Idea Man, 1117.
60. Wallace and Erickson, Hard Drive, 76.
61. Allen, Idea Man, 1163.
62. Allen, Idea Man, 1204.
63. Allen, Idea Man, 1223; Wallace and Erickson, Hard Drive, 81.
64. Author’s interview with Bill Gates.
65. Remarks of Bill Gates, Harvard Gazette, June 7, 2007.
66. Author’s interview with Bill Gates.
67. The section on Gates in Albuquerque draws on Allen, Idea Man, 1214 and passim; Manes and Andrews, Gates, 2011 and passim; Wallace and Erickson, Hard Drive, 85 and passim.
68. Bill Gates oral history, Henry Ford Innovation Series.
69. Allen, Idea Man, 1513.
70. Author’s interview with Bill Gates.
71. Allen, Idea Man, 1465; Manes and Andrews, Gates, 2975; Wallace and Erickson, Hard Drive, 130.
72. Author’s interview with Bill Gates.
73. Allen, Idea Man, 1376.
74. Fred Moore, “It’s a Hobby,” Homebrew Computer Club newsletter, June 7, 1975.
75. John Markoff, What the Dormouse Said (Viking, 2005; locations refer to the Kindle edition), 4633; Steven Levy, Hackers (Anchor/Doubleday, 1984; locations refer to the twenty-fifth anniversary reissue, O’Reilly, 2010), 231.
76. Author’s interview with Lee Felsenstein; Lee Felsenstein oral history, by Kip Crosby, Computer History Museum, May 7, 2008.
77. Homebrew Computer Club newsletter, Feb. 3, 1976, http://www.digibarn.com/collections/newsletters/homebrew/V2_01/gatesletter.html.
78. Author’s interview with Bill Gates.
79. Harold Singer, “Open Letter to Ed Roberts,” Micro-8 Computer User Group newsletter, Mar. 28, 1976.
80. Author’s interview with Lee Felsenstein.
81. Bill Gates interview, Playboy, July 1994.
82. This section draws from my Steve Jobs (Simon & Schuster, 2011), which was based on interviews with Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Nolan Bushnell, Al Alcorn, and others. The Jobs biography includes a bibliography and source notes. For this book, I reinterviewed Bushnell, Alcorn, and Wozniak. This section also draws on Steve Wozniak, iWoz (Norton, 1984); Steve Wozniak, “Homebrew and How the Apple Came to Be,” http://www.atariarchives.org/deli/homebrew_and_how_the_apple.php.
83. When I posted an early draft of parts of this book for crowdsourced comments and corrections on Medium, Dan Bricklin offered useful suggestions. We got into an exchange about the creation of VisiCalc, and I subsequently added this section to the book. It is partly based on email exchanges with Bricklin and Bob Frankston and on chapter 12, “VisiCalc,” in Dan Bricklin, Bricklin on Technology (Wiley, 2009).
84. Email from Dan Bricklin to the author; Dan Bricklin, “The Idea,” http://www.bricklin.com/history/saiidea.htm.
85. Peter Ruell, “A Vision of Computing’s Future,” Harvard Gazette, Mar. 22, 2012.
86. Bob Frankston, “Implementing VisiCalc,” unpublished, Apr. 6, 2002.
87. Frankston, “Implementing VisiCalc.”
88. Author’s interview with Steve Jobs.
89. IBM corporate history, “The Birth of the IBM PC,” http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/pc25/pc25_birth.html.
90. Manes and Andrews, Gates, 3629.
91. Manes and Andrews, Gates, 3642; Steve Ballmer interview, “Triumph of the Nerds,” part II, PBS, June 1996. See also James Chposky and Ted Leonsis, Blue Magic (Facts on File, 1988), chapter 9.
92. Bill Gates and Paul Allen interview, by Brent Schlender, Fortune, Oct. 2, 1995.
93. Steve Ballmer interview, “Triumph of the Nerds,” part II, PBS, June 1996.
94. Jack Sams interview, “Triumph of the Nerds,” part II, PBS, June 1996. See also Steve Hamm and Jay Greene, “The Man Who Could Have Been Bill Gates,” Business Week, Oct. 24, 2004.
95. Tim Paterson and Paul Allen interview
s, “Triumph of the Nerds,” part II, PBS, June 1996.
96. Steve Ballmer and Paul Allen interviews, “Triumph of the Nerds,” part II, PBS, June 1996; Manes and Andrews, Gates, 3798.
97. Bill Gates and Paul Allen interview, by Brent Schlender, Fortune, Oct. 2, 1995; Manes and Andrews, Gates, 3868.
98. Manes and Andrews, Gates, 3886, 3892.
99. Author’s interview with Bill Gates.
100. Bill Gates and Paul Allen interview, by Brent Schlender, Fortune, Oct. 2, 1995.
101. Author’s interview with Bill Gates.
102. Author’s interview with Bill Gates.
103. Bill Gates and Paul Allen interview, by Brent Schlender, Fortune, Oct. 2, 1995.
104. Bill Gates interview by David Rubenstein, Harvard, Sept. 21, 2013, author’s notes.
105. Bill Gates and Paul Allen interview, by Brent Schlender, Fortune, Oct. 2, 1995.
106. Bill Gates interview, conducted by David Bunnell, PC magazine, Feb. 1, 1982.
107. Isaacson, Steve Jobs, 135.
108. Isaacson, Steve Jobs, 94.
109. Author’s interview with Steve Jobs.
110. Steve Jobs presentation, Jan. 1984, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B-XwPjn9YY.
111. Isaacson, Steve Jobs, 173.
112. Author’s interview with Andy Hertzfeld.
113. Author’s interviews with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
114. Andy Hertzfeld, Revolution in the Valley (O’Reilly Media, 2005), 191. See also Andy Hertzfeld, http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=A_Rich_Neighbor_Named_Xerox.txt.
115. Author’s interviews with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
116. Author’s interview with Steve Jobs.
117. In addition to the sources cited below, this section is based on my interview with Richard Stallman; Richard Stallman, essays and philosophy, on http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu.html; Sam Williams, with revisions by Richard M. Stallman, Free as in Freedom (2.0): Richard Stallman and the Free Software Revolution (Free Software Foundation, 2010). An earlier edition of the Williams book was published by O’Reilly Media in 2002. As that edition was being completed, Stallman and Williams “parted on less than cordial terms” based on Stallman’s objections and requests for corrections. Version 2.0 incorporated Stallman’s objections and a significant rewriting of some segments of the book. These are described by Stallman in his foreword and Williams in his preface to version 2.0, which Stallman later called “my semi-autobiography.” For comparison, the original text of the book can be found at http://oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/.