Bill Gates and His Computer Empire October 28, 1955, the man who would revolutionize the computer industry as we know it, was born. The son of Bill Jr.and Mary Gates was named William Henry Gates III. Thecomputer super-genius was soon to take his place in history.Within the last fifteen years the company that he and PaulAllan started, Microsoft, has become the largest softwarecorporation in the computer industry. What is Bill Gatesbackground, and how did he preserve his place in historywhile amassing his fortune? Bill Gates grew up in a typicalwealthy family. His father, Bill Gates Jr., was a lawyer inSeattle, Washington. His mother was a socialite housewifeand occasional teacher. Growing up, Bill Gates nicknamewas "Trey." This nickname was indicative of the III after hisname. This nickname has stayed with him throughout his lifeto date (Wallace and Erikson 10). Bill also grew up as amiddle child between his two sisters. His older sister is namedKirsti, and his younger sisters name is Libby (Sihvonen 3).Bill Gates attended Lakeside School (an expensive privateschool in Seattle) as a child. Bill Gates was first introduced tocomputers as a student at Lakeside School. A company calledComputer Center Corporation (referred to as "C-cubed" by BillGates) leased computers from Digital Equipment Corporation.In 1968, the board of Lakeside School decided to provide acomputer (a GE PDP-10 connected via Teletype at theschool), and computer time for their students (Wallace andErikson 26). Almost instantly, Bill and a handful of fellowstudents were addicted to the new computer. Within a year,Bill Gates, Paul Allan, and two other students of LakesideSchool formed the Lakeside Programmers Group. At the ageof 13, Bill Gates had already constructed an application(program) that played tic-tac-toe. Later, the LakesideProgrammers Group developed an application calledTraf-O-Data. This was a program that would calculate thenumber of cars traveling down a ro...
