Microsoft

March 27, 1976

Bill Gates gives the opening address at the First Annual World Altair Computer Convention in Albuquerque, New Mexico, giving a talk about software piracy.

In early 1975 Gates had been a student at Harvard but along with Paul Allen developed a version of the BASIC language for the MITS Altair computer. They demoed it to MITS in March of that year and MITS agreed to distribute it then hired Gates and Allen to continue development. Gates and Allen soon moved to Albuquerque to form Microsoft (originally “Micro-Soft”) since MITS’s headquarters was also located in Albuquerque.

March 26, 2001

A little over 4 months after announcing that Tablet PCs would be the future, in his keynote at the 2001 Windows Hardware and Engineering Conference (WinHEC) Bill Gates announces Tablet PC support from Acer, Compaq, Fujitsu, Sony and Toshiba. Microsoft’s Tablet PC initiative made a lot of noise and had hardware manufacturers salivating at the thought of a new category of computers to sell after the post Y2k downturn in sales, but for a variety of factors never gained mainstream acceptance. It was not until Apple introduced the iPad in 2010 that mainstream tablet computing actually became a reality.