Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's pop artifact stash now heads to a museum

Paul Allen left more than just a tech legacy and billions of dollars behind when he died. The Microsoft co-founder amassed a sizable collection of unique artifacts from popular movies and music, which is now headed to a permanent home at Seattle's Museum of Pop Culture.  MoPOP is now the owner of "thousands of one-of-a-kind" …

[Colin Bull 1]

How would Microsoft have turned out if Gates and Bullmer had not tried to shaft Allen?

[Sandtitz]

"How would Microsoft have turned out if Gates and Bullmer had not tried to shaft Allen?"

Tried to shaft - how? IIRC, Allen resigned to deal with cancer.

Allen was the one who bought QDOS; whenever QDOS topic comes up here, most seem to view the deal with derision.

How would Micros~1 have turned out if Allen had remained there - who knows? Better or worse.

[Colin Bull 1]

A I understand it - Gates and Allen were 50/50 originally. Allen was doing something else on the side, so Gates "suggested" they reduce Allen's share to 60/40 or something because Gates would screw any one he could. When Bullmer came along he was from the same mould as Gates and they tried to concoct a deal that reduced Allen's shares even less. Allen overheard the discussion and said FU, I am off.

I believed Allen was the better programmer, but I do not know where I got that from.

[Lars]

Aviation

Is what comes to my mind regarding his later life, he got quite a collection of airplanes.

[chivo243]

Kirk's Chair

Looks like it's been stored in my brother's basement... paint chipped, coffee stain on the left side floor.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Kirk's Chair

Yeah, it's a pretty impressive item to have, but up close and out of context looks like a bit of poorly made, cheap stage dressing, Sad really.

[Red Ted]

Re: Kirk's Chair

I think you'll find that a lot of TV props of that era were to that quality.

I recall a tour of a TV Studios years ago when everything was still "Standard Def". Someone asked about "High Def" TV and the producers response was that it would quadruple the set budget as they would have to make everything to a higher standard!

[GruntyMcPugh]

Re: Kirk's Chair

There's documentary (I think it's on YouTube) about the Enterprise Shuttle prop, and it's a real eye opener about how poorly that was looked after.

[Anonymous Coward]

Where does the CP go?

[David 132]

Relics

Kudos to the author for the picture caption under Kirk’s chair: “The captain's chair from the USS Enterprise ... no bloody A, B, C or D”

Of course I read that in Scotty’s voice. And how appropriate for a story about “relics”.

[The Bobster]

Re: Relics

What would come after the dash...?

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Relics

The heavy breathing?

[trevorde]

Conspicuously absent

NFTs, thank goodness

[Dave@Home]

No business card?

Every time I watch American Psycho I always think of "tasteful off-white coloring"

[Plest]

Spell checkers offline over there at Vulture central?

"....Star Trek scripts hand-annotated by the late Nichelle Nichols...."