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Subject: Re: GW-Basic = GatesWilliam-Basic

Author: Roy Eassa

Date: 08:45:05 08/21/01

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On August 21, 2001 at 11:40:29, Christopher R. Dorr wrote:

>Just looked it up in my copy of 'Best of Byte Magazine'. According to Gates
>himself, it stands for 'Gee Whiz Basic' (Best of Byte, p. 197). I read in usenet
>that it was later 'solemnized' as 'Graphics Workstation Basic' (The poster cited
>an old IBM Manual) similar to the way that 'ping' was legitimized as 'Packet
>INternet Groper' to make it sound more acceptable to the corporate types.
>

Officially, it was indeed Gee Whiz.  But people at Microsoft "knew" that it was
also Gates William.  Like a pun, it had TWO meanings -- the official one and the
one that was the real motivation for the name.



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