Did Bill Gates write his own BASIC compiler at the age of 13?

Question

I am sure most developers currently in the computing industry probably could not write their own BASIC compiler on their own so is it true that Bill Gates wrote a BASIC compiler at the age of 13?

Answer 1

Most developers working in the computing industry are crummy developers, so what they can or can't do is not important.

Bill Gates probably didn't write a BASIC compiler at 13, because BASIC is an interpreted language. He may have written an interpreter. But that's also not important, because writing interpreters and compilers really isn't that hard.

What is hard, is writing an interpreter that will run inside a few K of RAM. Gates did that for the Altair.

Answer 2

Ha, ha, ha.

Where did you get that one from?

Bill Gates got into computers in high school. Back then, you had to use a terminal which communicated with a main frame computer over the phone line. So, obviously, he didn't write his own BASIC compiler at age 13.

Answer 3

He never did.

He knows nothing about programming (in any language).

If he did, "Windows" would be a good operating system that would not require you to change your machine every three years to cope with his growing demands on memory...

That does not mean he is not a good businessman... unfortunately.

Answer 4

One fairy tail more from MS.

Mr.Gates *never* wrote any software: poker people do not write SW :-)