How Big Tech Companies Got Their Names

How did big tech companies get their names?

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[yuvalne]

you also forgot to mention that before founding Apple, Jobs worked at Atari, and said that one of the reasons he chose Apple was not only to appear early in phone books, but specifically to appear before them.

[filipjovanovic]

Fun fact, my current gaming laptop is that exact Gateway laptop lol. It's actually holding up really well. And I got it for only $700 in March last year, at a time when PC prices were insane. I'm using it as a desktop replacement, because I was originally going to build a PC. But I chucked it into the closet beneath the stairs, hooked it up to ethernet, and use Moonlight to stream games from it. It'll continue to serve me well for several more years

[petervenkman]

Altair Basic was a language more than an OS (This is a bit contentious). The OS for Altair was CP/M, who competed with Microsoft for the IBM PC OS contract. In fact when IBM approached Microsoft to make an OS for them, they referred IBM to Digital Research Inc. who developed CPM, as they were the "OS Guys"... while Microsoft said they were happy to make the Basic language for IBM.

So IBM went to Digital Research, but the owner was (as the legend goes) was flying his plane the day IBM went calling, unimpressed they basically went back to Microsoft and suggested they both put forward versions.

Digital Research offered up a version of CP/M callled CP/M 86. Microsoft didn't have an OS of their own, but aquired a CP/M like OS called 86-DOS (Known internally as QDOS or Quaick and Dirty DOS), that they modified and rebranded PC Dos for IBM.
CPM/86 sold for $240/copy compared with Microsofts $40/copy ... unsurprising the cheaper Microsoft version sold better... and the rest was history.... sort of...

Microsoft kept the rights to the operating system, and so when Compaq reverse engineered the IBM BIOS, Microsoft could sell PC-DOS under the name of MS-DOS to clone manufacturers, which is how it ended up being so big, but selling IBM's OS to people making knockoffs of their machines. (The fact that other than the BIOS, in an attempt to bring a machine to market quickly the IBM PC was basically off the shelf hardware that anyone could throw together didn't help them).

[TheROOTminus]

Alphabetised order is why Google's parent company chose that name, because they are also unimaginative, whereas Facebook's parent company changed to Meta because...
*looks at notes*
...Ah yes! To avoid association with the privacy scandals and court summons

[EOTW]

You may have forgot to mention how Google as a conglomerate of several services within a year or so recently changed the their name to one starting with an "A", now known as Alphabet.

[mycosys]

Altay-ear??? Thats a different way to pronounce Altair (alt-air)

[savagepro]

Techquickie: Why Apple is Called Apple?
Adam&Eve: ?
The Serpent: ?

[sireuchre]

Kinda surprised you missed that Gateway as a brand may be manufactured by Acer now, but it is exclusively for Walmart. The ONN house brand wasn't working well for computers, so licensing Gateway exclusively brought a much more reliable name to market. We all know how the previous foray with their own invented 'Overpowered' brand went, and it seems the partnership with iBuyPower apparently hasn't been gaining traction, either.

[Matt_Del]

Steve Jobs supposedly loved the Beatles (Apple Records) and Bezos also supposedly wanted Amazon because it had the letters "A" and "Z"... Amazon's arrow points from A to Z because it sells everything from A to Z.

[neilmayo]

My friend used to sell cheap ram chips to them back in the garage. Steve showed him the napkin with the apple and said it was a "byte" taken out of the apple. But he never mentioned where the apple came from. He also told me stuff about Steve's hygiene that's not very flattering.

[MrRomDAW]

You are also forgetting the connection to the Beatles Apple Corps as well as McIntosh the audio equipment manufacturer, Woz is a huge admirer of both

[-Productions]

Pronounces Altair as "all-tie-ear" lol

[VetBodGaming]

My first computer was a gateway essential 450 in 1999 that my mom bought. Anyone else remember dial up answering machine programs? I used to have one that would redirect incoming calls to it.

[Madison-vjwz]

Apple also allegedly was named that to spite Atari according to Walter Isaacson's biography on Steve Jobs

[PaxRufrax]

Got a Gateway computer in 2000. It had a 17" CRT flatscreen and came with heaps of games, including Baldur's Gate and Freespace.

My family's first computer (maybe in 1991) was an Ipex 386 that ran MS DOS and later got Windows 3.0.

[JarOfRats]

Microsoft also wrote the Basic language interpreter for the Apple II, called....Applesoft.

[TuxikCE]

Why Techquickie is called Techquickie? Also what about LTT?

[junethefirst]

Microsoft was also behind the MSX computer standard. It was huge in Japan and pretty popular in Europe.

[liamalexander]

What? Amazon’s name came into play with the marketing aspect of their signature “smiling arrow”, pointing from A to Z, as they were originally an online bookstore. With everything from A to Z.

The CP/M thing was addressed too, but yeah, maybe you guys should’ve had Anthony write this one up, or maybe get ahold of someone like LGR for the older history bits.

All - Tear. I have an original copy of MS-DOS 2.10, and a cartridge with MS-BASIC - both were used by IBM in their Home Computing lineup, starting with the PCjr

[DisturbedNeo]

I love the irony of Apple and Amazon picking their names to appear first in lists, but the acronym that developed for big tech is FAANG 😂