Bill Gates remained in contact with Paul Allen, and he joined him at Honeywell during the summer of 1974. The MITS Altair 8800 was released the following year. The new computer was based on the Intel 8080 CPU, and Gates and Allen saw this as the opportunity to start their own computer software company. Gates dropped out of Harvard at this time. He had talked over this decision with his parents, who were supportive of him after seeing how much their son wanted to start his own company. Gates explained his decision to leave Harvard, saying "...if things [Microsoft] hadn't worked out,
Robert Franklin Gates commissions between 1937 and 1942, Gates also served as an instructor at the University of Florida, Hood College in Frederick, MD, the Washington County Museum of Art in Hagerstown, MD, and the Phillips Gallery Art School in Washington, D.C., where his wife Margaret worked as a secretary. Gates served in World War II as a civilian technician with the U.S. Navy. He made models and designed camouflage patterns. After the war, he studied under Bill Calfee at American University. He joined the faculty there in 1946. Gates worked as the Artist-in-Residence at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq from 1966-1967.