Traf-O-Data

Traf-O-Data was a partnership between Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Paul Gilbert. The objective was to read the raw data from roadway traffic counters and create useful reports for traffic engineers. The company had only modest success but the experience was significant to the creation of Microsoft a few years later. [cite web | title = Traf-O-Data | publisher = New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science | url = http://www.startupgallery.org/gallery/story.php?ii=45 | accessdate = 2007-04-30 ]

State and local governments frequently do traffic surveys with a pneumatic road tube traffic counter. Rubber hoses are stretched across a road and passing vehicles create air pulses that are recorded by a roadside counter. Today a solar powered microprocessor system records the number of vehicles and the time of day each passed. In 1970 the counts were mechanically recorded on a roll of paper tape. The time and number of axles were punched as a 16 bit pattern into the paper tape. (The standard Teletype paper tape uses only 8 bits.) Cities would hire private companies to translate the data into reports that traffic engineers could use to adjust traffic lights or improve roads.Bill Gates and Paul Allen were high school students at Lakeside School in Seattle. The Lakeside Programmers Group got free computer time on various computers in exchange for writing computer programs. Gates and Allen thought they could process the traffic data cheaper and faster than the local companies. They recruited classmates to manually read the hole-patterns in the paper tape and transcribe the data onto computer cards. Gates then used a computer at the University of Washington to produce the traffic flow charts. (Paul Allen's father was a librarian at UW.) This was the beginning of Traf-O-Data.cite book | last=Wallace | first =James | coauthors =Jim Erickson | title=Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire | publisher=John Wiley & Sons | date=1992 | pages= pg 42-46 | id =ISBN 0-471-56886-4]

The next step was to build a device to read the traffic tapes directly and eliminate the tedious manual work. The Intel 8008 microprocessor was announced in 1972 and they realized it could read the tapes and process the data. Allen had graduated and was enrolled at Washington State University. Since neither Gates nor Allen had any hardware design experience,they were initially stumped. The computer geek community in Seattle at that time was pretty small. Gates and Allen had a friend, Paul Wennberg who like them had hung around CDC Corporation near the University of Washington cadging open time on the mainframe. Paul Wennberg, founder of the Triakis Corporation, was then an electrical engineering student at the University of Washington. In the course of events Gates and Allen mentioned they were looking for somebody to build them a computer for free. They need somebody good enough to build a computer from parts and the diagrams found in a computer magazine. It was Paul Wennberg who came up with the man to do just that. After discussion with another friend, Wes Prichard, Prichard suggested to Wennberg that Gates and Allen head over UW Physics building to where Gilbert, another EE student worked in the high-energy tracking lab. It was there that Paul Gilbert was approached by the duo to become a partner in Traf -0-Data. That year Gilbert, piece by piece, wire wrapped, soldered and assembled from electrical components the world's (first)? working microcomputer. Miles Gilbert, Paul Gilbert's brother, a graphic designer and draftsman, helped the fledgling company by designing the company's logo. Gates and Allen started writing the software. To test the software while the computer was being designed, Paul Allen wrote a computer program on WSU's IBM 360 that would emulate the 8008 microprocessor.

The computer system was completed and Traf-O-Data produced a few thousand dollars of revenue. Later the State of Washington offered free traffic processing services to cities, ending the need for private contractors, and all three principals went onto other projects. The real contribution of Traf-O-Data was the experience that Gates and Allen gained developing software for computer hardware that did not exist. Paul Gilbert, sometimes referred to as "the hardware guy" was the man who made Traf -O Data work. Without his efforts,construction of this computer and the day to day running of this pioneering company, the inevitable rise of what became Microsoft might have been delayed. The experience gained in this venture would later use this to write Altair BASIC for the MITS Altair 8800 computer and start Microsoft.

References

External links

* [http://www.smartcomputing.com/editorial/dictionary/detail.asp?guid=&searchtype=1&DicID=19295&RefType=Encyclopedia smartcomputing.com]

http://www.triakis.com/Wes Prichard.