was in 1974 on a teletype connected to an IBM 360 mainframe. I was programming in BASIC by 1975. I would have liked to have squared off against him - there was no one in middle school that came close to my talent - which isn't saying a whole lot (only about a dozen people used the computer, and they liked playing games - STERL and MALAR).
Programming takes more experience than talent. I'm sure that Bill started off pretty bad at programming - but people like Paul Allen would "rub off on him". I think that since Bill had the talent for making deals, he separated from the technical day-to-day stuff to concentrate on marketing. Which of course suited him best . . .
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