Bill Gates with the Office of the Secretary of the State of New Mexico. Gates never returned to Harvard to complete his studies. Microsoft's Altair BASIC was popular with computer hobbyists, but Gates discovered that a pre-market copy had leaked into the community and was being widely copied and distributed. In February 1976, Gates wrote an Open Letter to Hobbyists in the MITS newsletter in which he asserted that more than 90 percent of the users of Microsoft Altair BASIC had not paid Microsoft for it and by doing so the Altair "hobby market" was in danger of eliminating the incentive for
Mimi Gardner Gates Mimi Gardner Gates Mary "Mimi" Gates (née Gardner; born July 30, 1943) is an American art historian who is the recent Director of the Seattle Art Museum. In 1996, she married Bill Gates Sr., father of Bill Gates. Gates holds a B.A. degree in art history from Stanford University, a certificate with honors in Chinese language and culture from the École Nationale des Langues Orientales Vivantes in Paris, an M.A. degree in Oriental and Chinese Studies from the University of Iowa, and a Ph.D. degree in Art History from Yale University. An old friend of Theresa Heinz Kerry, she is