text: Bill Gates was born on October 28th, 1955. He grew up in Seattle, Washington. Bill Gates was named William Henry after his father and grandfather. He was a very clever boy. His favourite subject at school were science and maths. When he was 13 years old, Bill started to play with computers. At that time, computers were very large machines. Once he was interested in a very old computer. He and some of his friends spent lots of time doing unusual things with it. In the end, they worked out a software programme with the old machine. Bill sold it for 4, 200 dollars when he was only 17. In 1973, Bill went to Harvard University. At Harvard, he developed the BASIC language for the first microcomputer . In his third year, he left Harvard to work for a company called Microsoft. Bill began this company in 1975 with his friend Paul Allen. They thought that the computer would be a very important tool in every office and in every home, so they began developing software for personal computers. They improved the software to make it easier for people to use computer.