I worked with Tim Stamper on Atic Atac in the fond days of the Spectrum :) One thing I will remember of him is that he did not enjoy being dictated to creatively and the move just after the takeover of microsoft was the last straw.
"...the best way to prepare [to be a programmer] is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and fished out listings of their operating system." - Bill Gates (Microsoft Corporation)
"Hey, Steve, just because you broke into Xerox's house before I did and took the TV doesn't mean I can't go in later and take the stereo." - Bill Gates (Microsoft Corporation)
Bill Gates had Mac prototypes to work from, and he was known to be obsessed with trying to make Windows as good as SAND (Steve's Amazing New Device), as a Microsoft exec named it. It was the Mac that Microsoft took for its blueprint on how to make a GUI.
""Windows [n.] - A thirty-two bit extension and GUI shell to a sixteen bit patch to an eight bit operating system originally coded for a four bit microprocessor and sold by a two-bit company that can't stand one bit of competition.""
