The Mac prototype.
If I’m remembering my timeline right, Microsoft got its first Mac prototype somewhere around 1982. The prototype was basically an upgraded Lisa system, and had that shape.
According to all the books I’ve got, the first MacIntosh hit the market in 1984, so it’s not unreasonable that Bill Gates who was then pretending to do application development for Apple actually had a Mac prototype in 1983, because he did at one point acquire three of them.
Catsix! You’re so SMART. Thanks-- that’s a very reasonable answer.
I’m thinking he looks more like he’s done a few lines . . .
Tripler
. . . and I don’t mean of software code.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist. (Page has sound.)
Hey now, I think he looks cute-ish there. Sure, you have the hugeass Napoleon Dynamite glasses, and the geektastic sweater, but he’s not bad. I might have had a crush on him had I been around then.
I guess there’s something very wrong with me, because I think he looks kind of cute even in the original photos. Rowrr…nerdalicious!
That. Was. Awesome!
Then there is something wrong with me too, cuz I agree with you.
Those pictures are now in the hallway of my office. I only wish my co-workers were geekier, so as to appreciate most of my humor a bit more.
I think so too. Actually, he looks an awful lot like my SO.
Sorry for the bump, but Snopes has information on where the photos really came from (it’s Gates, but the year and publication are wrong).
Does this solve the mystery, catsix, capybara?
Thanks for bumping this, Governor Quinn. The OP’s mirrordot.org URL doesn’t work any more, so I hadn’t seen the photos until you came up with the Snopes link.
The dead giveaway that the year is 1984 or later (snopes says its 1985) is that the IBM Personal Computer behind Bill is clearly the AT model (introduced in 1984) rather than the original 5150 PC (1981) or 5160 XT (1983) versions.