Marc McDonald
Encyclopedia
Marc B. McDonald is an American
who was Microsoft
's first salaried employee (not counting Monte Davidoff
, who wrote the math package for Basic for a flat fee). He is credited with designing the FAT File System
for Standalone Basic which was the file system for the MS-DOS
operating system and Microsoft Windows
. He left the company in January 1984, citing a reason that Microsoft had gotten "too big" (Microsoft was at around four hundred employees at that time). He was Asymetrix
's first employee where he worked on a Lisp pcode system used internally and redesigned the ToolBook runtime and compiler for ToolBook 3.0. At Design Intelligence, Marc worked on adaptive document design and an expression-based programming language used for layout experiments. Marc rejoined when Microsoft bought Design Intelligence in the late 2000.
When McDonald rejoined Microsoft, a number of employees including Bill Gates
and Steve Ballmer
were involved in trying to get him assigned the employee number "1". However due to a limitation in the human resources software, that proved to be too difficult. Instead he carries a badge with all the digits scraped off except "1". http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=111590
Marc currently works in the QA
-oriented Windows
Defect Prevention group. Much of his recent work focuses on organizational best practices to drive software quality from the bottom up. He is co-author of "The Practical Guide to Defect Prevention" https://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9198.asp published in November 2007. He holds six software patent
s.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
who was Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
's first salaried employee (not counting Monte Davidoff
Monte Davidoff
Monte Davidoff is an American computer programmer. He graduated from Nicolet High School in Glendale, Wisconsin in 1974. He went on to Harvard University, where he majored in applied mathematics, the department at Harvard that, at the time, included computer science. He also worked at WHRB, the...
, who wrote the math package for Basic for a flat fee). He is credited with designing the FAT File System
File Allocation Table
File Allocation Table is a computer file system architecture now widely used on many computer systems and most memory cards, such as those used with digital cameras. FAT file systems are commonly found on floppy disks, flash memory cards, digital cameras, and many other portable devices because of...
for Standalone Basic which was the file system for the MS-DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
operating system and Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
. He left the company in January 1984, citing a reason that Microsoft had gotten "too big" (Microsoft was at around four hundred employees at that time). He was Asymetrix
Asymetrix
Asymetrix was a US computer software company. The company was founded by Microsoft founder Paul Allen in 1984, and produced a number of software products covering web, presentation, and e-learning markets. In 2004 it became part of SumTotal Systems.Asymetrix headquarters were in Bellevue,...
's first employee where he worked on a Lisp pcode system used internally and redesigned the ToolBook runtime and compiler for ToolBook 3.0. At Design Intelligence, Marc worked on adaptive document design and an expression-based programming language used for layout experiments. Marc rejoined when Microsoft bought Design Intelligence in the late 2000.
When McDonald rejoined Microsoft, a number of employees including Bill Gates
Bill Gates
William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. Gates is the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen...
and Steve Ballmer
Steve Ballmer
Steven Anthony "Steve" Ballmer is an American business magnate. He is the chief executive officer of Microsoft, having held that post since January 2000. , his personal wealth is estimated at US$13.9 billion, ranking number 19 on the Forbes 400.-Early life:Ballmer was born in Detroit, Michigan to...
were involved in trying to get him assigned the employee number "1". However due to a limitation in the human resources software, that proved to be too difficult. Instead he carries a badge with all the digits scraped off except "1". http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=111590
Marc currently works in the QA
Quality Assurance
Quality assurance, or QA for short, is the systematic monitoring and evaluation of the various aspects of a project, service or facility to maximize the probability that minimum standards of quality are being attained by the production process...
-oriented Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
Defect Prevention group. Much of his recent work focuses on organizational best practices to drive software quality from the bottom up. He is co-author of "The Practical Guide to Defect Prevention" https://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9198.asp published in November 2007. He holds six software patent
Software patent
Software patent does not have a universally accepted definition. One definition suggested by the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure is that a software patent is a "patent on any performance of a computer realised by means of a computer program".In 2005, the European Patent Office...
s.