As Richard Nixon destroyed happiness with his war on drugs, the 1970’s saw the world’s first personal computers, inspiring five geeks to start a pair of companies which would go on to shape the future of computing as we know it.
正如理查德·尼克松（第36任美国副总统（1953年－1961年）与第37任美国总统（1969年－1974年））打击毒品的战争与他的幸福，20世纪70年代看到了世界上第一台个人电脑，启发五个怪才创建一对公司，而这两家公司将继续塑造正如我们现在所熟知的计算机世界的未来。
In January of 1975 Bill Gates and Paul Allen called up Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems claiming to have a working BASIC interpreter for the MITS Altair 8800 microcomputer. While that claim was entirely fictitious, it took Gates and Allen just two months to create the product they claimed to already have.
With the interpreter working flawlessly, MITS agreed to distribute the software under the name Altair BASIC. Microsoft was officially established just one month later, on April 4th, 1975. After launching their first Disk Operating System (DOS) in 1980 Microsoft quickly began to grow into one of the biggest names in personal computing.
在1975年一月比尔·盖茨和保罗·艾伦召集了微型仪器和遥测系统声称拥有能在MITS Altair的8800单片机上工作的BASIC解释器。然而这种说法完全是子虚乌有的，不过盖茨和艾伦花了短短两个月的时间便创造了这个他们声称已经拥有的产品。
随着解释器完美地工作，MITS同意冠以Altair BASIC的名字发布这款软件。仅一个月后，1975年4月4日，微软正式成立。在1980年推出他们的第一个磁盘操作系统(DOS)后，微软很快就成长为个人电脑的大腕之一。
Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne founded their company, Apple, on April 1st 1976, just short of one year after the inception of Microsoft. Unlike Microsoft, who chose to focus on operating systems for other people’s hardware, Apple began their business by selling bare-bones hand-built computer kits, named the Apple I.
After Wayne sold his shares of the company to the Steve’s for just $800, Apple incorporated on January 3rd, 1977. With the backing of Multi-millionaire Mike Markkula, Apple Computers Inc. had the funding it needed to develop the most advanced personal computer to date, the Apple II (launched on April 16th 1977).
史蒂夫·乔布斯、斯蒂夫·沃兹尼亚克、罗纳德·韦恩于1976年4月1日创办了他们自己的公司——苹果，巧好比微软公司晚一年时间。不像微软选择把重点放在其他人的硬件操作系统，苹果则通过售卖裸骨的手工电脑配件——称为Apple I，开始他们的业务。
在韦恩以仅仅800美元的价格把他所持有的公司股份卖给史蒂夫后的1977年1月3日，苹果公司成立。随后以百万富翁迈克·马库拉做后盾，苹果公司有了资金用以开发迄今为止最先进的个人电脑——Apple II （于1977年4月16日推出）。
With color graphics and an open architecture, the Apple II set the course for personal computing, beginning the battle for dominance of what soon proved to be one of the biggest un-tapped markets in history.
随着彩色图形和一个开放的体系结构，Apple II开创了个人电脑的里程，并开始了对这很快被证明是在历史中还未被挖掘的最大的市场之一的主导地位的争夺战。
Despite maintaining dominance of the OS market for over three decades, Microsoft’s stocks continue to trade at or below their first ever public value of $27.50 (at closing on 3/13/1986).
尽管保持操作系统市场的主导地位超过了三十年，微软的股票交易依然保持在或低于其首次发行价格27.50美元（直到1986年3月13日）。
Thanks to Apple’s extremely successful ventures into various hand-held gadget markets (namely the iPod, iPhone and iPad) Apple’s stock continues to rise, trading at over $300 more than that of Microsoft’s as of 6/6/2011.
With the launch of OSX Lion set for July 2011, more than a full year earlier than the scheduled release date of Windows 8 (the first entirely re-designed UI of a Windows OS since windows 95), it’s reasonable to assume the gap in stock pricing between the two companies will continue to grow for the foreseeable future.
由于苹果在各种手持小工具市场非常成功的风险投资（即iPod，iPhone和iPad）苹果的股票持续上涨并在2011年6月6日以超过300美元的交易价赶超微软。
随着2011年7月推出OSX Lion系列，比Windows 8（自windows 95以来首次完全重新设计的UI操作系统）的计划发布日期早了足足一年，在可以预见的未来，这两家公司的的股票市值差价将会继续扩大的假设是合情合理的。
There you have it, the history of computing as pertaining to the two biggest names in the game, in infographic form. Feel free to share this post with the world; just try to remember to drop a link, letting the world know where you found it. If you want to share it on your blog in one step, click on the “Embed this” link below the image above, and it will give you the HTML code you need.
UPDATE: After reading the slew of comments I’ve added a graph at the bottom detailing the two companies Market Cap. Unfortunately this information for the entire timeline (or by specific day) is seemingly unavailable. I’ve added the last 10 years, if I could have gotten more data I would have used it.
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