microsoft
Report a problem

The quotable Bill Gates

Steven Parker   on 23 June 2008 - 09:35 · 6 comments & 8161 views

Advertisement (Why?)
In the past several decades, Microsoft's departing leader has provided plenty of choice quotes for audiences to ponder.
Some of the most oft-repeated comments attributed to Bill Gates through the years were not uttered by Bill Gates. Take for instance "640K ought to be enough for anybody," which he supposedly said in 1981 to note that the 640KB of memory in IBM's PC was a significant breakthrough. Or his alleged comment that if General Motors "had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles per gallon."

The latter is listed at the snopes.com Web site as an urban legend, and Gates has addressed the 640KB quote in interviews. "I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time ... I keep bumping into that silly quotation attributed to me that says 640K of memory is enough. There's never a citation; the quotation just floats like a rumor, repeated again and again," he told Bloomberg Business News in 1996. "Do you realize the pain the industry went through while the IBM PC was limited to 640K? The machine was going to be 512K at one point, and we kept pushing it up. I never said that statement -- I said the opposite of that."

View: Full Article @ InfoWorld

Post a comment · Send to friend Comments · There are 6 additional comments
#1 mocax on 23 Jun 2008 - 13:02
Maybe he pronounced it in such a way that it sounded like "640k is nought enough for anybody"
And as the message gets passed along, it got sed (stream edited) a little.

(2 replies) #2 z0phi3l on 23 Jun 2008 - 14:03
Hell I remember that comment from back in the 80's when it first popped up, it was in one of the many PC mags that had popped up during the initial days of the IBM PC. Whether or not it's wrongly associated or miscarachterised, it did happen and I wish I still had the mag with the quote.
#2.1 [deXter] on 23 Jun 2008 - 16:10
I have a manual of the '94? game OMF 2097 with the 640k quote printed in it
#2.2 Joshie on 24 Jun 2008 - 07:26
[deXter
said,#2.1]I have a manual of the '94? game OMF 2097 with the 640k quote printed in it


OMF 2097....I...remember that. Holy crap I loved that game. Wasn't there some sort of new 3D OMF in the works several years back? *wonders*
(1 reply) #3 Magallanes on 23 Jun 2008 - 16:31




#3.1 Airlink on 24 Jun 2008 - 00:53

Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!

Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.

Advertisement (Why?)