actually MS was formed in early 1990's. I also didnt say he retired I said he retired from full time and I also said I am not sure if he retired from part time aswell. They are in financial trouble, u can look the records up on the internet. Microsoft has allot of lawsuits against them. You can take a look at the Windows OS and tell that he had stolen from other companies and stolen big time from Apple. Apple was established either in 1972 or 1974 I would have to look that up again, but Apple was around since the 70's. But you also have to remember there was another Apple company around during that time as well. Bill Gates didn't start MS in the 70's. He started it in the 90's the first Window OS was in the early 90's. Apple bought out Macintosh in the mid 80's.
1989: Apple introduces its long awaited portable Macintosh: the Powerbook. Standard sized keyboard, built in trackball for a mouse, and LCD screen
1990: Apple introduces its low-end Macintoshes: The Classic, LC and IISI.
1990: March: Apple Macintosh 'IIfx' introduced. The first real 'orphan' of the Macintosh line. Based on a 40mHz version of the 68030 microprocessor, Apple selected a rather odd 64 pin SIMM memory module for this unit that was never used again in any other Apple computer. This caused the unit to be unusually expensive to upgrade as the rest of the Macintosh II series of computers returned to more common configurations of memory.
1991: Apple releases the System 7.0 operating system for Macintosh.
1991: Major changes among PC dealers as ComputerLand acquires Nynex's computer stores, CompuCom acquires Computer Factory, ValCom and Inacomp merge, JWP buys Businessland and Intelligent Electronics acquires BizMart.
1991: Apple and IBM sign a historic deal--including two joint ventures: Kaleida will develop multimedia products, Taligent will develop object-oriented operating software.
1991: Apple rolls out its PowerBook notebook and Quadra Macintosh PCs.
1992: The core of Apple's lawsuit versus Microsoft Windows is "settled out of court."