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Story: Microsoft moves beyond the Gates era

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Marco, I remember CP/M, Unix, VAX/VMS, PC-DOS, MSX, ZX81, Acorn, Tandy and a few others. Loads and loads of connected users worldwide. Plenty of them internationally. Communicating electronicly, exchanging data. Universities, military, multinationals, etc, etc. The only thing keeping mass adoption down was the price of the equipment. Just as has been the case with consumer cars, TV's, radio's, VCR's, etc, etc. And just as is the case with, say, cars (that you don't need to be a mechanic to be able to drive it) back then there wasn't a need to be a programmer to be able to use a PC (or terminal) at all. So Microsoft didn't introduce standard rules (and still doesn't really) or any of the other distorted history labels you're talking about. DNS, ASCII, EBCDIC, Cobol, C, ASM, Neuman architecture, multi-tasking, scripting, etc, etc was all there already. No, what Microsoft did was selling the dream that everyone could be a 'driver' and a 'mechanic' as well by rigging the market rules. And zillion of virusses, crashes, spam, payed updates, disappointments, frustrations, broken budgets and what not later we all still believe that.

You know what they say: as long as you're dreaming you're not waking up.

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