03/13/2023 at 00:01 by Henner Schröder – Microsoft goes public and Bill Gates becomes a millionaire – that happened on March 13th. Every day, PC Games Hardware takes a look back at the young but eventful history of the computer.
… 1981: A Brookhaven Bulletin article describes Tennis for Two, a 1958 analog computer game played on an oscilloscope [s. Wikipedia], first billed as the world’s first computer game, and continues to push video games into the focus of public interest. In the gallery you will find some impressions of the 50th anniversary celebration.
… 1986: Microsoft has been around since 1975 – but the prosperous software company only became a public limited company on March 13, 1986. Each of the approximately three million shares is said to cost $21, but the price quickly rises to $29 – who to sold at that point, making a profit of almost 40 percent. At the end of the day, the stock is worth $27.75 and will continue to rise over the coming years. Anyone who recognizes the potential of this small software manufacturer as early as the 1980s can become rich – although not quite as rich as the company founders Paul Allen and Bill Gates, who own the majority of the shares and become millionaires that day. Later, these two even become billionaires through their shareholdings and Bill Gates temporarily becomes the financially richest person in the world.
… 2002: AMD releases the Athlon XP 2100+ for $420 in 1,000-unit quantities. The CPU clocks at 1.73 GHz and was known as an OC miracle in some steppings (“JIUHB”). In PCGH 03/2013 (for re-ordering the issue) we dedicate an article in the “Hardware Legends” series to the Athlon XP CPUs.
