February 3, 1976
By William Henry Gates III
To me, the most critical thing in the hobby market right now is the lack
of good software courses, books and software itself. Without good
software and an owner who understands programming, a hobby computer is
wasted. Will quality software be written for the hobby market?
Almost a year ago, Paul Allen and myself, expecting the hobby market to
expand, hired Monte Davidoff and developed Altair BASIC. Though the
initial work took only two months, the three of us have spent most of
the last year documenting, improving and adding features to BASIC. Now
we have 4K, 8K, EXTENDED, ROM and DISK BASIC. The value of the computer
time we have used exceeds $40,000.
The feedback we have gotten from the hundreds of people who say they are
using BASIC has all been positive. Two surprising things are apparent,
however, 1) Most of these "users" never bought BASIC (less thank 10% of
all Altair owners have bought BASIC), and 2) The amount of royalties we
have received from sales to hobbyists makes the time spent on Altair
BASIC worth less than $2 an hour.
Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you
steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is
something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get
paid?
Is this fair? One thing you don't do by stealing software is get back at
MITS for some problem you may have had. MITS doesn't make money selling
software. The royalty paid to us, the manual, the tape and the overhead
make it a break-even operation. One thing you do do is prevent good
software from being written. Who can afford to do professional work for
nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all
bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free? The fact is, no
one besides us has invested a lot of money in hobby software. We have
written 6800 BASIC, and are writing 8080 APL and 6800 APL, but there is
very little incentive to make this software available to hobbyists. Most
directly, the thing you do is theft.
What about the guys who re-sell Altair BASIC, aren't they making money
on hobby software? Yes, but those who have been reported to us may lose
in the end. They are the ones who give hobbyists a bad name, and should
be kicked out of any club meeting they show up at.
I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up, or has a
suggestion or comment. Just write to me at 1180 Alvarado SE, #114,
Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87108. Nothing would please me more than being
able to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market with good
software.
Bill Gates
General Partner, Micro-Soft
