Paul Allen Early Years Microsoft Other Businesses

Allen was born in Seattle, Washington. At Lakeside School, Paul Allen (14 years old) and friend Bill Gates (12 years old) became early computer enthusiasts. Allen went on to attend Washington State University, though he dropped out after two years to pursue his and Gates's dream of writing software commercially for the new " personal computers".

2 Microsoft

They founded Microsoft (initially "Micro Soft") in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1975Events January January 1 Watergate scandal: John N. Mitchell, H. Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman are found guilty of the Watergate cover-up and are sentenced to 30 months to 8 years in jail on February 21 January 5 The Tasman Bridge in Tasmania, Australia, i, and began selling a BASICBASIC is a family of high-level programming languages. Originally devised as an easy-to-use tool, it became widespread on home microcomputers in the 1980s, and remains popular to this day in a handful of heavily evolved dialects. BASIC's name, coined in c interpreterAn interpreter is a computer program that executes other programs. This is in contrast to a compiler which does not execute its input program (the source code) but translates it into executable machine code (also called object code) which is output to a f. Allen spearheaded a deal for Microsoft to buy an operating systemIn computing, an operating system OS is the system software responsible for the direct control and management of hardware and basic system operations, as well as running application software such as word processing programs and web browsers. In general, t called QDOSQDOS the "Quick and Dirty Operating System," (not to be confused with The Sinclair_QDOS, another Operating System by the same name) was a simple 16-bit operating system originally written in just four months by Tim Paterson in 1980 for an Intel 8086-based for $50,000. Microsoft won a contract to supply it for use as the operating system of IBMThis article is about the International Business Machines Corporation; see IBM (disambiguation) for other uses of this abbreviation. International Business Machines Corporation IBM or colloquially, Big Blue (incorporated June 15, 1911, in operation since's new PCThe IBM PC (Personal Computer), is a trade mark of IBM. The predecessor of the current personal computers, it was introduced in August 1981. The original model was designated the IBM 5150 . It was helped created by Don Estridge who changed the world of IB. This became a foundation of Microsoft's remarkable growth.

Allen was forced to resign from Microsoft in 1983 after being diagnosed with Hodgkin's diseaseHodgkin's disease is a type of lymphoma described by Thomas Hodgkin in 1832, and characterized by the presence of Reed-Sternberg cells. Epidemiology Unlike other lymphomas, whose incidence increases with age, Hodgkin's lymphoma has a bimodal incidence cur which was successfully treated by several months of radiation therapy and a bone marrow transplant.

3 Other businesses

Allen invests in a number of companies and projects through Vulcan Inc. and his venture capital firm, Vulcan Ventures. This includes Charter Communications , for which he is the chairman of the Board of Directors.

He is the owner of the Portland Trail Blazers (an NBA basketball team) and the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League. He also owns Rose Garden Arena, the home court of the NBA Blazers team. Due to declining attendance in 2002 and 2003, as well as difficulties renegotiating the terms of a 1993 loan, the Rose Garden corporation filed for bankruptcy on February 27, 2004.

He owns (through Rose City Radio Corporation ) some Portland Oregon radio stations. When he heard Seattle's Cinerama movie theater was about to shut down, he bought, restored, and updated it into a showplace for movies of all formats. He is also one of the principal financiers behind the SETI project, having stepped in to rescue the project when NASA stopped funding it in the 1990s.

4 Other ventures

In 1984 he founded Asymetrix, a software development company based in Bellevue, Washington. Asymetrix later went on to become Click2learn.com and yet later merged with Docent to become Sum Total System (2004). In the 1990's the company began to specialize in software for developing and delivering computer-based learning.

In December 2003 he announced that he was the sponsor behind the SpaceShipOne private rocket plane venture from Scaled Composites, as part of the ANSARI X PRIZE competition. In June 2004, SpaceShipOne became the first successful commercial spacecraft when it passed the 100 kilometer threshold of space. And later, in October of the same year, the craft won the $10 million Ansari X-Prize by successfully completing two space trips within two weeks.

In September 2003, Allen founded the Allen Institute of Brain Science pledging $100 million in seed money to the Seattle-based organization. Its inaugural project is the Allen Brain Atlas, a map of the human brain which will be made publicly accessible. The Brain Atlas is a component of the loosely formed Human Cognome Project.

Starting in October 2002, Vulcan Ventures began funding Project Halo, an attempt to apply Artificial Intelligence techniques to the problem of producing a digital Aristotle that might serve as a mentor, providing comprehensive access to the world's knowledge.

He is also the founder of the Experience Music Project, originally inspired by his interest in a museum to house his considerable collection of Jimi Hendrix memorabilia. In June 2004, Allen opened the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, located at the Experience Music Project.

Allen owns the Flying Heritage Collection.

5 External links

Allen, Paul Allen, Paul Allen, Paul Allen, Paul Allen, Paul Allen, Paul Philanthropists

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1 Early years