In 1981, Microsoft was to develop the software for the first IBM PCs. This also included some PC games. Bill Gates personally contributed to this and even programmed a game himself. At the time, Apple saw it as the worst game of all time.
43 years ago, the IT landscape was still very manageable. The founding of Microsoft had, for example, only been a few years earlier and Bill Gates still kept an eye on all employees. For this reason, the small software manufacturer looked for new business partners to continue to grow.
With IBM, then-Microsoft CEO Bill Gates found such a partner. IBM needed an operating system for its first personal computer. The agreement also included games that IBM wanted to have on its PCs.
To ensure this, Bill Gates personally developed a game called Donkey. The simple racing game, which was programmed in a long night, received heavy criticism from Apple. In the eyes of an Apple employee, it was nothing less than the most embarrassing game of all time.
Bill Gates programs the worst PC game of all time
What kind of game was it? 43 years ago, Bill Gates programmed the PC game Donkey. In this racing game, one had to avoid donkeys on a road. For this, one could switch their race car between the left and right lanes.
Bill Gates and Microsoft developer Neil Konzen sat in a locked room until 4 a.m. to finalize the game for IBM. The game was developed in the BASIC programming language.
How did Apple react? Over 40 years ago, Apple, like Microsoft, was not yet a global corporation as it is today. Interested in what the competition was doing, the Apple Macintosh team checked out Microsoft’s work, because its own founding had only been a few years earlier.
Former Apple developer Andy Hertzfeld was particularly disappointed by Bill Gates’ own game development. He stated at the time that Donkey was the most embarrassing game of all time
and that the concept of the game was as bad as the lousy graphics it used.
(via businessinsider.de)
Why did Gates write the game? In 1980, Microsoft made a deal with IBM. The software manufacturer was to deliver the operating system for the first IBM PC. To do this, Microsoft acquired the software from elsewhere to then resell it under a different name to IBM.
However, the deal also included the provision of the BASIC programming language on the IBM PCs. To promote the programming language for beginners, corresponding games were to be pre-installed. For this, Gates sat down in 1981 in front of a prototype of the IBM PC to secretly write the game.
Over the years, Microsoft gained more and more market share and rose to become a major global corporation with its software products. A student wanted to profit from this and used his similarly sounding name for advertising. However, Microsoft did not like this at all: Student Mike Rowe clashed with Microsoft – A website with his name was almost the same as the Windows corporation
