1) "Gates’ story makes it sound like he has some street cred: He got his computing start working with the LPC. But this initially impressive acronym won’t get you far with the likes of Snoop D-O double-G, you see. The LPC, unlike Snoop’s similar-sounding LBC, isn’t about ganking fools and getting up in yo bitches. Instead, it’s the Lakeside Programming Group — a fittingly dorky clan Gates helped form at his high school. As part of that group, Gates pulled in his first $20 Gs by creating and selling a traffic monitoring program called Traf-O-Data. It saw plenty of success, until its customers realized the guy behind it was only 14 years old." Source and further information: http://www.techcult.com/before-they-were-billionaires/ 2) "The Traf-O-Data was a computerized machine for processing paper tapes from traffic counters, those black hoses most of us have driven over on roads throughout the United States. It was an early example of a microprocessor-controlled “embedded system,” not really a computer as we know it, but computerized, the way microwave ovens and DVD players and just about everything else is computerized today. As a product it failed, and would have disappeared from history without a ripple were not two of the people involved named Paul Allen and Bill Gates." "Writing in assembly language, Allen programmed a PDP-10 to emulate the Intel 8008 microchip, and he and Gates were able to complete the Traf-O-Data software before the machine was even operational. " Source and further information: http://www.startupgallery.org/gallery/story.php?ii=45