Sexy Beast

Let’s say it’s the early 1980’s. You’ve just bought a Quick and Dirty

Operating System and repackaged it for IBM to include with their new

“Personal Computer” (IBM had such a revulsion for non-mainframe things

that the PC was created by the “Entry Systems Division”, which

suggested that these were things you used until you got a real computer).

You’re a hot rising software star, and hot rising software stars need dates. Which photo should you send potential soul mates?

This one?

Photo: Bill Gates sits on his desk, posing playfully. Probably faked.

“I’m plug and play, yo.”

Or this one?

Photo: Bill Gates sits on his desk, posing with a 'come hither' look. Probably faked.

“640K of this action should be enough for anybody, baby!”

(Thanks to Dan Dickinson for the inspiration.)

12 replies on “Sexy Beast”

What’s with the Mac in the second picture? After a hard day of ripping of Apple’s ideas, Bill Gates is ready for some action?

Considering that I’m guessing this photo is probably circa 1985, that’s very likely either a 128K or a 512K Mac. Microsithsoft made software back in the day for the early Macs. This was pre-Windows and pre-Apple lawsuit.

Ya, wouldn’t the monitors have those lines going across them? How was airbrushing technology back then?

Doesn’t happen with cameras as long as the exposure is at a long enough time, it happens in film due to the short exposure length not coinciding with the image on screen.

Huh? People had good-quality film cameras going back a good long time… and well before the advent of the multi-megapixel CMOS Image Sensor, there was a device called a scanner…

You know, there was a time when all telephones had a wire coming out of ’em, too.

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