At Lakeside, Gates became acquainted with Paul Allen , a teenager with a similar interest in technology who would eventually become his future business partner.
Gates's early experiences with computers included debugging (or eliminating errors from) programs for the Computer Center Corporation's PDP-10, helping computerize electric power grids for the Bonneville Power Administration, and--while still in high school--founding with Allen a firm named Traf-O-Data. Their small company earned them twenty thousand dollars in fees for analyzing local traffic patterns.
While working with the Computer Center's PDP-10, Gates was responsible for what was probably the first computer virus, which is a program that copies itself into other programs and ruins data. Discovering that the machine was hooked up to a national network of computers called Cybernet, Gates invaded the network and installed a program on the main computer that sent itself to the rest of the network's computers. Cybernet crashed. When Gates was found out, he was severely reprimanded and he kept away from computers for his entire junior year at Lakeside. Without the lure of computers, Gates made plans in 1970 for college and law school.
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