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Comment by rustynails77 | Hacker News Reader

I second your comments on Pirates of Silicon Valley. I always thought it was a spoof, but it's actually quite a good film - it's definitely a lot better than the new Jobs movie ... it gives you much better insight to what sort of man Steve Jobs was (good and bad).

One of the things that stood out from the movie was just how much Microsoft "stole" from Apple. I'm not making that comment as flame bait - it's common knowledge that Microsoft copied Apple ... but I didn't realise that Jobs gave Gates the actual computers before they were released ... including operating system and all.. It gives you an understanding of just how much copying actually happened.

Two sides to the same coin: Gates was most probably the more shrewd operator, but with little tech skills - he bested Steve Jobs who was much more of a visionary, but let his guard down with Bill Gates, and paid the penalty.

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Gates, who kickstarted Microsoft by personally implementing a full BASIC interpreter in 1024 bytes of ROM, had infinitely more tech skills than Jobs, who if recent biographies are to be believed went to his deathbed still believing the Apple II invented the switch-mode computer power supply.

I believe Paul Allen had a much larger role in Microsoft's BASIC development than you imply.

I'm also unaware of any 1024-byte full BASIC interpreter.

Sorry, I did not mean for it to sound so much like it was a one-man show.

And yes, I misremembered, it was more like 4096 bytes. http://web.archive.org/web/20011211233332/www.rjh.org.uk/alt...

what's often overlooked is that jobs copied a lot from xerox parc. jobs undoubtedly was a visionary who knew how to package technology and appeal to the masses, but let's also fairly state how much of apple's initial innovations originated from elsewhere.

Xerox made a lot of money in pre-IPO investment in Apple, which is why Jobs was given a tour o PARC. If you ever have the chance o playing with a Star and compare it to a Lisa or a Mac, you'll clearly see how much Apple improved over the original ideas.

no question. this is why the Star never succeeded -- much like tablets from microsoft. the macro point is that jobs, like gates, often found tech inspiration from elsewhere. jobs' superpower was infusing geeky products (potentially pioneered elsewhere) with mass market appeal.

> Gates was most probably the more shrewd operator, but with little tech skills -

Did you just really say that Bill Gates had little tech skills?

That might be the first time I've ever seen someone make that claim. he's widely recognized as being someone whose "tech skills" dominated practically everyone else.

See "My first BillG review" http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html

> _but I didn't realise that Jobs gave Gates the actual computers before they were released ... including operating system and all_

Microsoft was by far the biggest software developer for Mac OS and had more programmers working on it than Apple (and feeding stuff back to Apple). Gates appeared on stage at the Mac launch to promote it, and Gates and Jeff Raikes (ex Apple) tried to get Apple to license Mac OS with Microsoft's support.

Like Apple, Microsoft also hired ex-Xerox programmers, so the two companies were both collaborating closely and drawing on a common source.

Otherwise, as others have noted. Gates was a nerd and had vastly better technical skills than Jobs, who basically had none at all. Jobs was a marketeer who capitalized on Woz's technical skills.

I liked Gates' quote about both of them getting stealing from their rich neighbor Xerox. To be fair, that's all Apple really ever did -- take existing ideas and refine the hell out of them.

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