April 14, 2011 3:29 PM

Paul Allen and the birth of the PC, Microsoft

Allen's idea was to write software that would enable the "Altair" to work as well as those large computers.

"And so we called up the company that made it, and said, 'Well, we can demonstrate this software for you very quickly. Are you interested?' And, they said, 'Sure, if you can really show up and demonstrate it,'" Allen remembered.

But in truth, Allen said they had no software.

So they spent the next eight weeks at Harvard feverishly writing code, but without an Altair to test on.

Allen writes that because Gates looked like he was 13, they decided Allen should go alone to pitch their software. Sitting by an old original Altair, he showed Stahl how he fed the computer a paper strip with their code punched into it and typed "print 2+2."

"And then I hit return. And, lo and behold, it printed four," Allen told Stahl, as the vintage model printed out the number. "And a wave of relief surged over me 'cause I couldn't, I almost couldn't believe it had worked the first time. That night, I called Bill up and I say, 'Billy, it's unbelievable, it worked!!' And, we were just over the moon."

It was the beginning of the age of a computer in every home, on every desk. Almost overnight, people started buying these small computers and their software was in high demand. In 1977, Gates was even interviewed on a TV show.

"There's a lot of people who are forecasting that there'll be software stores just like there are record stores today and that there'll be thousands and thousands of those. And I think I'd have to agree with that," Gates said in the interview.

Allen writes that Gates had a rare gift for programming. He was also the shrewder businessman.

From the beginning, he demanded a larger share of the company: 60 percent, and then more. But Allen says he was the one who pushed through the company's big early break: developing an operating system for IBM's first personal computer in 1980.

Yet as the company soared, Allen didn't want to give up his whole life to Microsoft, the way Gates did.

"Well, I've always had so many different interests," he told Stahl.

"But do you think he came to think that you weren't working as hard as he was, and it became a source of resentment with him?" Stahl asked.

"Well, I think he was always pushing people to work as hard as they possibly could," Allen said.

"You included?" Stahl asked.

"Maybe me more than everybody else," Allen said.

"You describe Bill in this period and actually throughout as tough, a taskmaster. You talk about his yelling. Screaming!" Stahl said.

"There was a lot of yelling," Allen acknowledged.



© 2011 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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