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Entrepreneurs of the Software Revolution

Article submitted by
- Bai M.N. Gamadia Girls' High School

In 1972, entrepreneur Nolan Bushnell installed the first of his coin-operated Pong games – video versions of Ping Pong – in a Sunnyvale, California, tavern. Not long afterward, the tavern owner informed Bushnell that the game was broken and suggested that he come and take it away. But when Bushnell investigated, he found that the machine was not broken at all. It had been stuffed so full of quarters that it was jammed.
With a $500 investment, Bushnell started Atari. Four years later, he sold the company and pocketed $15 million; less than a decade after that, he reckoned his worth at $70 million.
As the microcomputer industry gained momentum in the 1970s and 1980s, a number of enterprising programmers, manufacturers and marketers joined Bushnell in hitting the financial jackpot. Following are some of the entrepreneurs who made it big.

1975 – Paul Allen and Willian Gates founded Microsoft
1976 – Gary Kildall formed Digital Research Inc. to vend his CP/M operating system.
1977 – Steven Jobs and Stephen Wozniak created the Apple computer.
1979 – Seymour Rubinstein marketed Wordstar, written by John Barnaby.
1979 – Daniel Bricklin and Robert Frankston launched VisiCalc.
1981 – George Tate marketed dBASE II, developed by Wayne Ratliff.
1982 – Mitchell Kapor introduced Lotus 1-2-3 with a million-dollar ad campaign.