Michael Halvorson

Michael James Halvorson (born 1 March 1963) is an American technology writer and historian. He was employed at Microsoft Corporation from 1985 to 1993 and contributed to the growth of the Microsoft Office and Microsoft Visual Basic software platforms. He is the author of 40 books related to computer programming, using PC software, and the history of innovation and technology.

Halvorson grew up in Olympia, Washington. He received a B.A. degree in Computer Science from Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) in 1985, and MA and Ph.D. degrees in History from the University of Washington (1996, 2001). In a recent book, he discusses the formative influence of the liberal arts on his approach to technical writing and software systems.

In November 1985, Halvorson was hired as employee #850 at Microsoft in Bellevue, Washington, where he worked as a technical editor, acquisitions editor, and localization project manager.

Halvorson was an influential acquisitions editor at Microsoft Press during the early years of personal computing, acquiring and editing books from notable American technology writers such as Ray Duncan, Dan Gookin, Steve McConnell, Jerry Pournelle, Neil Salkind, and Van Wolverton. Within Microsoft's product teams, Halvorson worked as a localization project manager for the Visual Basic for MS-DOS 1.0 compiler (1992), contributing to the release of the product in the French and German languages.

Halvorson's first influential book was Learn BASIC Now, a Microsoft QuickBASIC programming primer co-authored by David Rygmyr. The book was published by Microsoft Press in 1989 and included a foreword by Bill Gates, who described Microsoft's plans for the BASIC language in future operating systems and application software. Learn BASIC Now won the Computer Press runner-up prize for "Best How-To Book" published in 1989. In a review of the book, L. R. Shannon of the New York Times wrote, “For anyone who wants to learn something about programming, it would be hard to find an easier or more cost-effective source than Learn BASIC Now.”

In 1990, a Macintosh version of Learn BASIC Now was published which included the Microsoft QuickBASIC Interpreter for Macintosh Plus, SE, and II systems on 3.5” diskettes. Learn BASIC Now was also bundled with six arcade-style games written in QBasic and distributed by Microsoft in a package called Microsoft Game Shop 1.0 (1990).

Halvorson later wrote a series of popular books on the emerging Microsoft Office software suite, including Running Microsoft Office for Windows 95, co-authored with Michael Young. In May 1999, Halvorson's Running Microsoft Office 2000 attempted to calm fears about the pending Y2K problem (or Millennium bug), which the authors believed was driven by popular hysteria. A series of textbooks introducing Microsoft Works and Microsoft Office followed to help popularize Microsoft's integrated software suites and the idea that learning to use them efficiently was a suitable subject for college students.

As the Microsoft Windows platform gained momentum, Halvorson's Microsoft Visual Basic Step by Step book series popularized graphical user interface (GUI) programming by introducing and exploring Visual Basic, a product that simplified the process of Web development, game programming, and creating business applications. Canadian-American software developer Tyler Menezes credits the slot machine program in Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Professional Step by Step (1998) for introducing him to video game development and coding initiatives.