how did bill gates invention change society?

Answer 1

I would not define it as an invention, rather a vision of the direction of the personal computer and an understanding of how to market his operating system better than any other. Two things to keep in mind, one is that even today there are those who debate where his operating system originated that is, in 1974, Dr. Gary A. Kildall, while working for Intel Corporation, created CP/M as the first operating system for the new microprocessor. By 1977, CP/M had become the most popular operating system (OS) in the fledgling microcomputer (PC) industry. The largest Digital Research licensee of CP/M was a small company which had started life as Traf-0-Data, and is now known as Microsoft. In 1981, Microsoft paid Seattle Software Works for an unauthorized clone of CP/M, and Microsoft licensed this clone to IBM which marketed it as PC-DOS on the first IBM PC in 1981, and Microsoft marketed it to all other PC OEMs as MS-DOS.

That stated, there is also the debate as to what was the best microprocessor of the time.

The Intel 8080 was an early microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel. The 8-bit CPU was released in April 1974 running at 2 MHz (at 640,000 instructions per second), and is generally considered to be the first truly usable microprocessor CPU design. It was implemented in NMOS.

The Intel 8080 was what Gates used with his purchased operating system. However, many believed that the Motorola 6800 was a better microprocessor.
The 6800 is a microprocessor produced by Motorola and released shortly after the Intel 8080 in 1975. In my opinion a superior product relative to the Intel 8080. It had 78 instructions, including the (in)famous, undocumented Halt and Catch Fire (HCF) bus test instruction. It may have been the first Microprocessor with an index register. It was usually packaged in a 40 pin DIP (dual-inline package). Several first-generation microcomputers of the 1970s, available by mail order as kits or in assembled form, used the 6800 as their CPU; examples are the MEK6800D2 development board, the SWTPC 6800 (the first computer to use the 6800), the MITS Altair 680 range (MITS offered these as alternatives to its Altair 8800 which used the Intel 8080), several of the Ohio Scientific designs, Gimix, Smoke Signal Broadcasting, Midwest Scientific, and the Newbear 77/68.

Arguably the products offered by Gates were neither the best nor the least expensive. For example there was family of Apple computers and of course the Amiga (which I believe was better than either the Apple or Microsoft products).

The Amiga is a family of personal computers originally developed by Amiga Corporation. Development on the Amiga began in 1982 with Jay Miner (1932-1994) as the principal hardware designer. Commodore International introduced the machine to the market in 1985, after having bought Amiga Corporation. Based on the Motorola 68k series of microprocessors, the machine sported a custom chipset with advanced graphics and sound capabilities, and a sophisticated pre-emptive multitasking operating system (now known as AmigaOS). While the M68k was a 32-bit processor, the version originally used in the Amiga had a 16-bit external data bus, and the original machine (along with its contemporary, the Atari ST) was generally referred to in the press as a 16-bit computer; later models sported fully 32-bit designs. The Amiga provided a significant upgrade from 8-bit computers such as the Commodore 64, and the Amiga quickly grew in popularity among computer enthusiasts, especially in Europe. It also found a prominent role in the video production and show control business, and was a less-expensive alternative to the Apple Macintosh and IBM-PC.

Of course this begs the question, why then did Bill Gates win-out over all competitors? It’s because he is a great business person (with excellent advice from such as his father) and is one of the best marketers to ever come down the road.

It is not that something Bill Gates invented that changed society but that his being instrumental in making the personal computer available to the general public that changed society. In this Bill Gates didn’t operate alone. A case could be made that the earlier Commodore personal computer became the computer of the people. It was a very different approach to marketing and support. A real history can be found at:
http://www.commodore.ca/history/company/chronology_portcommodore.htm

The real answer is that Bill Gates, along with many others developed a personal computer market that no one in 1975 knew would happen. Society has changed but it is the result of many different people.