Bill Gates, born William Henry Gates III, was first introduced to computers at Lakeside, a private school known for its intense academics environment. It was in the spring of 1968 that Lakeside decided to introduce the student body to the computer world. Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and a few other Lakeside students became immediately attached to the computer. They'd stay in the computer room all day and all night, writing programs, reading computer literature and anything they could to learn more about using the computer.

In the fall of 1968, Computer Center Corporation in Seattle opened for business. One of the chief programmers had a child that attended Lakeside. The computer Center Corporation and Lakeside Prep School struck a deal that allowed the school to keep providing students with computer time. Gates and other students began exploring the new machine, and it was long before the young hackers started causing...