IF YOU CAN'T BEAT 'EM...

They'd been dueling for more than a decade, the binary wonders of the computer age: Steve Jobs, the flower-child dreamer whose Apple Computer brought the world the Mac's cheerful desktop icons, and Bill Gates, the brilliant and ruthless competitor whose Microsoft tamed the world with Windows after sneaking in behind those scary columns of DOS code. Their battle for control of the home computer suggested '60s barricades re-erected for the corporate '80s: Yin vs. Yang. Luke vs. Vader. Kennedy vs. Nixon. Jeans vs. Pinstripes. Art vs. Commerce.

And the winner is? We're so conditioned to Hollywood's underdog victories that it came...