BILLIONAIRE GIVER: BILL GATES
MELINDA MEI
Did
you know that Bill Gates
invented lots of things besides
Microsoft? He is the richest person
in the United States with more than
$76 billion! He also has many other
admirers, including Sean Kelly,
associate writer at the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation, who says,
“I really admire Bill and Melinda
Gates. They are both software
geniuses and great business people.
But the real reason I admire them is
because of what they did with their
wealth… now they are working even
harder to use that money in the best
ways possible to help other people.
That is pretty inspiring!” Before Bill
Gates got his wealth, he started with
smaller inventions.
INVENTIONS BEFORE MICROSOFT
Even before Microsoft, Bill Gates
invented lots of things. What did he
invent? Did his school know
anything about his ability? Keep
reading to find out.
Some of the things Gates invented
helped his school. In high school, Bill
Gates sold a timetable to his school,
which got him $4,200. A timetable is
a computer program that helps
schedule students in classes. Bill
Gates slyly made the code so that he
was in a class with lots of interesting
girls. At Harvard, Gates wrote a
Bill Gates
pancake sorting algorithm, which is
a complicated mathematics problem
presented in a combinatorics class
( which is an advanced math class) .
Bill Gates also invented things to
make life easier. Gates created the
first programming language with his
friend, Paul Allen, when he was 19.
Bill Gates made a badge with a tiny
microchip for guests to wear when
they enter his house. When the
guests enter the house with the
badge, the lighting, temperature, and
even their favorite art is displayed
on the walls (electronically) to suit
the person’s taste. Bill Gates also
helped invent MS-DOS.
MS-DOS helped make life easier.
MS-DOS was invented in 1981. MSDOS is short for Microsoft Disk
Operating System. MS-DOS allows us
to open files on our computers from a
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