In his new autobiography, the computer pioneer and philanthropist writes of his origins, and about how, in eighth grade, he discovered BASIC, which introduced him to the elegance and exacting demands of computer code.
We may receive an affiliate commission from anything you buy from this article.In Bill Gates' new autobiography, 'Source Code: My Beginnings' , the computer pioneer and philanthropist writes of his formative years, and the experiences that led him to the then-burgeoning world of computers.Read an excerpt below about how, in eighth grade, he discovered
, which introduced him to the elegance and exacting demands of computer code; and don't miss Lee Cowan's interview with Bill Gates on 'CBS Sunday Morning' February 2!'Source Code: My Beginnings' by Bill GatesPrefer to listen? Audible has a 30-day free trial available right now.All these years later it still amazes me how so many disparate things had to come together for me to use a computer in 1968.
programming language. Just four years old at the time, the 'Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code' was made to help students in nontechnical fields get started with computer programming. One of its attributes was that it used commands, such as GOTO, IF, THEN, and RUN, that made sense to humans.
is what hooked me and made me want to come back.On the wall next to the terminal, a teacher had tacked up a half sheet of paper with the most rudimentary directions to get started, including how to sign in and which keys to press when something went wrong. It also warned ominously that typing ''PRINT' WITHOUT A STATEMENT NUMBER MAY CAUSE LOSS OF CONTROL.
telling the computer how to add two numbers.Ready . . .10 INPUT X,Y20 LET A=X+Y30 PRINT A40 ENDThat was probably the first computer program I ever typed in. The elegance of the four lines of code appealed to my sense of order. Its instantaneous answer was like a jolt of electricity. From there, I wrote the first computer program of my own—a game of tic-tac-toe. Getting it to work forced me to think through for the first time the most basic elements of the game's rules.
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