tes dropped out of Harvard at this time.[42] He had talked this

SAT^[33] and enrolled at Harvard College in the autumn of 1973.^[34] While at Harvard, he met Steve Ballmer, who would later succeed Gates as CEO of Microsoft.^[35]

The Poker Room in Currier House at Harvard College, where Gates and Allen founded Microsoft

In his sophomore year, Gates devised an algorithm for pancake sorting as a solution to one of a series of unsolved problems^[36] presented in a combinatorics class by Harry Lewis, one of his professors. Gates's solution held the record as the fastest version for over thirty years;^[36][37] its successor is faster by only one percent.^[36] His solution was later formalized in a published paper in collaboration with Harvard computer scientist Christos Papadimitriou.^[38]
Gates did not have a definite study plan while a student at Harvard^[39] and spent a lot of time using the school's computers. Gates remained in contact with Paul Allen, and he joined him at Honeywell during the summer of 1974.^[40] The following year saw the release of the MITS Altair 8800 based on the Intel 8080 CPU, and Gates and Allen saw this as the opportunity to start their own computer software company.^[41] Gates dropped out of Harvard at this time.^[42] He had talked this decision over with his parents, who were supportive of him after seeing how much Gates wanted to start a company.^[39]

Microsoft

Main articles: History of Microsoft and Microsoft

BASIC

MITS Altair 8800 Computer with 8-inch (200 mm) floppy disk system

After reading the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics that demonstrated the Altair 8800, Gates contacted Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), the creators of the new microcomputer, to inform them that he and others were working on a BASIC interpreter for the platform.^[43] In reality, Gates and Allen did not have an Altair and had not written code for it; they merely wanted to gauge MITS's interest. MITS president Ed Roberts agreed to meet them for a demo, and over the course of a few weeks they developed an Altair emulator that ran on a minicomputer, and then the BASIC interpreter. The demonstration, held at MITS's offices in Albuquerque, was a success and resulted in a deal with MITS to distribute the interpreter as Altair BASIC. Paul Allen was hired into MITS,^[44] and Gates took a leave of absence from Harvard to work with Allen at MITS in Albuquerque in November 1975. They named their partnership "Micro-Soft" and had their first office located in Albuquerque.^[44] Within a year, the hyphen was dropped, and on November 26, 1976, the trade name "Microsoft" was registered with the Office of the Secretary of the State of New Mexico.^[44] Gates never returned to Harvard to complete his studies.
Microsoft's BASIC was popular with computer hobbyists, but Gates discovered that a pre-market copy had leaked into the community and was being widely copied and distributed. In February 1976, Gates wrote an Open Letter to Hobbyists in the MITS newsletter saying that MITS could not continue to produce, distribute, and maintain high-quality software without payment.^[45] This letter was unpopular with many computer hobbyists, but Gates persisted in his belief that software developers should be able to demand payment. Microsoft became independent of MITS in late 1976, and it continued to develop programming language software for various systems.^[44] The company moved from Albuquerque to its new home in Bellevue, Washington on January 1, 1979.^[43]
During Microsoft's early years, all employees had broad responsibility for the company's business. Gates oversaw the business details, but continued to write code as well. In the first five years, Gates personally reviewed every line of code the company shipped, and often rewrote parts of it as he saw fit.^[46]

IBM partnership

IBM approached Microsoft in July 1980 regarding its upcoming personal computer, the IBM PC.^[47] The computer company first proposed that Microsoft write the BASIC interpreter. When IBM's representatives mentioned that they needed an operating system, Gates referred them to Digital Research (DRI), makers of the widely used CP/M operating system.^[48] IBM's discussions with Digital Research went poorly, and they did not reach a licensing agreement. IBM representative Jack Sams mentioned the licensing difficulties during a subsequent meeting with Gates and told him to get an acceptable operating system. A few weeks later, Gates proposed using 86-DOS (QDOS), an operating system similar to CP/M that Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products (SCP) had made for hardware similar to the PC. Microsoft made a deal with SCP to become the exclusive licensing agent, and later the full owner, of 86-DOS. After adapting the operating system for the PC, Microsoft delivered it to IBM as PC DOS in exchange for a one-time fee of $50,000.^[49]
Gates did not offer to transfer the copyright on the operating system, because he believed that other hardware vendors would clone IBM's system.^[49] They did, and the sales of MS-DOS made Microsoft a major player in the industry.^[50] Despite IBM's name on the operating system the press quickly identified