Biggest computer lie ever told

[Deadjasper]

Not sure with regards to computers. But I think somebody said that "640K ought be enough for anybody". But pretty sure they were talking about CEO salaries in the 80's.

I think Bill Gates said something similar but it was much less than 640K.

 

[LukeTbk]

I think Bill Gates said something similar but it was much less than 640K.

It could be an urban legend (or a deformation of going to 640kb should leave room for a decade that ended up being wrong), but it was the back in the days PC-Dos limit of 640k, if you read what he was writing about the future of programming and computing in the 70s it is really hard to believe (virtually impossible) that he would said something like that in the earlys 80s in the sense of literal forever. He was expecting really impressive stuff to happen on personals computer, like ability to describe physics laws, describe a world and let it run on the computer, once compiler get so good people does not have to program them anymore.

That one version (there is many different of it, none contemporary of when he would have said it):
When we set the upper limit of PC-DOS at 640K, we thought nobody would ever need that much memory. — William Gates, chairman of Microsoft

 

[Deadjasper]

It could be an urban legend (or a deformation of going to 640kb should leave room for a decade that ended up being wrong), but it was the back in the days PC-Dos limit of 640k, if you read what he was writing about the future of programming and computing in the 70s it is really hard to believe (virtually impossible) that he would said something like that in the earlys 80s in the sense of literal forever.

That one version (there is many different of it, none contemporary of when he would have said it):
When we set the upper limit of PC-DOS at 640K, we thought nobody would ever need that much memory. — William Gates, chairman of Microsoft

I always thought he was more a business man than a computer guru.

 

[LukeTbk]

I always thought he was more a business man than a computer guru.

Maybe Allen was the bigger guru, impossible to know, but when you write 8008 emulator for your visual basic interpreter you wrote directly in assembly, you must have some deep understanding of how computers work combined with being right that PC are around the corner to be something people will be able to buy.

 

[Red Falcon]

I always thought he was more a business man than a computer guru.

Correct, just as Steve Jobs was a salesman.
The real technical individuals behind them both were Paul Allen and Steve Wozniak.

Still, someone has to have charisma in order to sell technical products to the average layman, which is the role both Gates and Jobs performed.
They were certainly anything but technical geniuses, though.

 

[cjcox]

It could be an urban legend (or a deformation of going to 640kb should leave room for a decade that ended up being wrong), but it was the back in the days PC-Dos limit of 640k, if you read what he was writing about the future of programming and computing in the 70s it is really hard to believe (virtually impossible) that he would said something like that in the earlys 80s in the sense of literal forever. He was expecting really impressive stuff to happen on personals computer, like ability to describe physics laws, describe a world and let it run on the computer, once compiler get so good people does not have to program them anymore.

That one version (there is many different of it, none contemporary of when he would have said it):
When we set the upper limit of PC-DOS at 640K, we thought nobody would ever need that much memory. — William Gates, chairman of Microsoft

Yeah, but has nothing to do with salary. But maybe he said "When we set the upper limit at Microsoft at 640K, we thought nobody would ever remember we said that."