Bill Gates and Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on January 1, 1975. The company later relocated to Redmond, Washington, after dropping the hyphen from its name.
The duo had previously worked together at Lakeside Programming group in the early 70s and as founders of Traf-O-Data, a road traffic analysis company. Microsoft would go on to revolutionize personal computing over the next five decades.
For this anniversary, the author reminisces about their first Microsoft product – MS-DOS 5.0. This version of the operating system was significant because it was the one they used on their first computer. Unfortunately, the details of that computer remain a mystery due to its obsolescence and age.
The computer in question was a generic IBM PC 5150 clone, purchased sometime between 1995 and 1996. It featured an Intel 8088 processor, two 5.25-inch floppy drives, and limited RAM. The lack of a hard drive forced the user to rely on outdated diskettes that were often going bad.
Source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/04/remembering-ms-dos-5-0-my-first-microsoft-product-on-the-companys-50th-birthday