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There is a story around that Bill Gates tampered with his school's (or college's) scheduling system to get in class with all the 'hot' girls.

Did this in fact happen?

References I've found:

Oddthinking
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Benjamin Gruenbaum
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    Does someone have access to his autobiography "Hard Drive"? Apparently [it answers this question](http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/11vp91/til_that_bill_gates_tweaked_his_schools_programs/c6q30pi). – Oddthinking Jul 09 '13 at 14:59
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    Seems unlikely. Gates' would have been 14 (high school age) in 1969. A small computer -- the Data General Nova -- was the size of a household refrigerator and cost $8,000. It is possible a high school might have had one... but access was likely restricted to terminals hard wired to the computer. Telephone modems and portable terminals existed, but were slow, like ~ 100-300 bits per second. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing_hardware_(1960s%E2%80%93present) – Paul Jul 09 '13 at 23:39
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    @Paul: apparently his autobiography explains he was hired by the school to program their DEC's scheduling tool. – Oddthinking Jul 09 '13 at 23:42
  • @Oddthinking sadly it's out of print and the only copy listed on Amazon with international shipping costs nearly $100. Also looked at other biographies, same deal, including his autobiography "the road ahead". – jwenting Jul 10 '13 at 06:01
  • @Oddthinking in that case he'd not be "tampering" with it, and he'd certainly not work unsupervised, not at his age at the time. – jwenting Jul 10 '13 at 06:02
  • @jwenting Used copies found on ebay... $5 + shipping. The Post Office will be cheapest on shipping. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hard-Drive-Bill-Gates-and-the-Making-of-the-Microsoft-Empire-1992-by-0471568864-/350812479460?pt=US_Fiction_Books&hash=item51ae0d9fe4 – Paul Jul 10 '13 at 08:11
  • It is $0.01 plus $4 shipping (USA) from an Amazon Affiliate, Used. http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0887306292/ref=dp_olp_all_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=all – Paul Jul 10 '13 at 08:14
  • @Oddthinking Part of it is in google books online already: http://books.google.com/books?id=XdYOGBhp0SAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=hard+drive+bill+gates&hl=en&sa=X&ei=UBjdUZrRI4qA8gSN2IDYDA&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA – Paul Jul 10 '13 at 08:17
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    @jwenting You would be surprised, a lot of the biographies and other books about early tech leaders indicate that they generally had unsupervised access once people trusted them. Plus, at the time, most people wouldn't necessarily know what someone was doing on a computer anyway. – rjzii Jul 10 '13 at 11:26
  • @rob at age 14? As a teen at a school that was paying thousands of dollars an hour for that computer time? Unlikely. – jwenting Jul 10 '13 at 11:32
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    @jwenting programmers today still complain their managers have no idea what programming looks like, do you really think 40 years ago someone overseeing him would have known the difference as long as an acceptable output happened. – Ryathal Jul 10 '13 at 12:32
  • @Ryathal I seriously doubt even (or especially) 40 years ago they'd have let a 14 year old kid access a computer with vital information on it, let alone without supervision by someone who did know how the thing worked. Computers weren't commoditised as they are now, they were black magic, restricted access. – jwenting Jul 11 '13 at 05:24
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    @jwenting Actually, back in the 1960's your average teenager off the straight might not have had access, but one that had an interest in computers could get access and that's one of the key things that tend to get mentioned in histories of Silicon Valley - a lot of the founders of companies credit their access to computers in their teenage years for them turning out the way they did. Plus, in the case of Bill Gates we aren't talking about a random teenager, but one that already had a track record of developing software by the time he was writing the scheduler. – rjzii Jul 11 '13 at 11:22

1 Answers1

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The story with regards Bill Gates scheduling classes is true, although if this would be considered "tampering" is best left to the reader. According to Bill Gates, he actually wrote a computerized class scheduler for Lackside School in which he included an extra feature,

Of course, a whole new dimension of relevance came when I was asked to do a computerized class schedule for the high school.

It was complex, but ultimately very rewarding. By the time I was done, I found that I had no classes at all on Fridays. And even better, there was a disproportionate number of interesting girls in all my classes.

This is also corroborated in an interview with the BBC. According to a Wired time line on Bill Gates, this took place in 1971 so he would have been 15 to 16 years old at the time and was already engaged in quite a bit of work at the time that he was being paid for as well.

In one sense the undocumented feature that he added could be considered anything ranging from an Easter egg to a backdoor. However, since he was asked to write the software it wasn't tampering per se even though it is against the code of ethics of most professional societies.

rjzii
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    Thanks for digging this up, I looked and was unable to find this information on the internet :) Always knew deep in my heart that Bill was a player. – Benjamin Gruenbaum Jul 10 '13 at 15:23
  • If tampering is not an accurate description of what he did, then the answer is no, not yes and no. –  Jul 10 '13 at 18:21
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    @Sancho: It's a matter of definition. This answer explains the full situation, so the reader can determine. This is far more useful than a simple "yes" or "no" as you seem to be requesting. See the [definition of *tamper*](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tamper), and you will see that Gates's activities can be considered tampering--or not. – Flimzy Jul 10 '13 at 18:52
  • I'm not asking rob to remove the full explanation, but to better describe whether the literal answer is yes or no. I like his most recent edit. –  Jul 10 '13 at 19:34
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    @Sancho This is where I'm going to neatly side-step the tampering aspect of question since the story as a whole is true even though the ethics of it (and therefore the question of tampering) are debatable. – rjzii Jul 10 '13 at 19:34
  • I agree with Rob. Attempting a Yes/No literal answer would oversimplify to the point of being misleading. – Oddthinking Jul 11 '13 at 01:21
  • Since I'm the original poster and it seems that you're arguing about what I was asking I'll gladly clarify.This answer is exactly what I was ---expecting--- hoping for. Whether he had legitimate access to the said computer system or gained such access in malice is indeed a part of the answer. However the more interesting part was whether or not he did in fact make it that a lot of the pretty girls just 'happened' to be in his class. Rob, thanks again for the answer. – Benjamin Gruenbaum Jul 12 '13 at 19:04