Was Satoshi Nakamoto a Windows or Mac User?

Let's look at some evidence from Bitcoin's Source Code

Code Analysis

Bitcoin's initial release shows strong evidence of Windows development:

// windows.h dependencies throughout codebase
#ifdef _WINDOWS
#include <windows.h>
#endif

// Windows-specific networking code
#ifdef _WINDOWS
    WSADATA wsadata;
    int ret = WSAStartup(MAKEWORD(2, 2), &wsadata);
#endif

Key indicators:

  1. Windows-first compilation paths
  2. Windows-specific system calls
  3. Visual Studio project files included in original release
  4. Windows-style path separators in default configurations

Build System Evidence

The original Bitcoin 0.1 included:

  • Visual Studio 2008 project files
  • Windows-specific makefiles
  • MinGW compilation support

Unix/Mac support required manual configuration, suggesting secondary platform status.

Dependencies

Bitcoin 0.1's dependencies favored Windows:

  • wxWidgets configured for Windows
  • Berkeley DB Windows builds
  • OpenSSL Windows configurations
  • Boost Windows paths

Network Code

Network implementation heavily used Windows Socket API (Winsock):

// Clear preference for Winsock
SOCKET hSocket = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP);
if (connect(hSocket, (struct sockaddr*)&addr, sizeof(addr)) != SOCKET_ERROR)

Development Timeline

Release patterns aligned with Windows development:

  • Primary testing on Windows
  • Windows binaries released first
  • Mac/Unix ports followed later

Early Bitcoin developer Laszlo Hanyecz

Hanyecz was the one to add MacOS support for the early Bitcoin client.

Bitcoin originally didn't work on Mac. So I ported it to that. And Satoshi actually asked me to do the releases for MacOS. I would do the build because he didn't have a Macintosh. He didn't know how to build it for Mac. So I was doing that and it was actually my binaries that were being posted.

Laszlo Hanyecz, known as the “Bitcoin pizza guy,

Conclusion

Evidence strongly suggests Satoshi developed Bitcoin primarily on Windows, likely using Visual Studio 2008. Mac support appears to have been secondary.

References

  1. Bitcoin v0.1 source code
  2. Original Bitcoin forum posts by Satoshi
  3. Early Bitcoin releases and binaries
  4. https://cointelegraph.com/news/was-satoshi-a-windows-or-mac-guy-we-have-the-answer

Note: While technical evidence points to Windows development, this remains speculative without direct confirmation from Satoshi.