Microsoft's Bill Gates and Apple's Steve Jobs appeared together on stage for an unusual joint interview tonight at the Wall Street Journal's "D" conference down in California. Just to address the most pressing issue at the outset: Yes, they talked about Apple's Mac/PC ads. But judging from the reports coming out of the session, it wasn't exactly Hagler vs. Hearns. In fact, it sounds like the legendary rivals were, for the most part, pretty diplomatic.

Highlights from the coverage:

Associated Press: Gates praised Jobs for developing products of "incredible taste and elegance." Jobs credited Gates for creating "the first software company in the industry." Jobs added, "Bill focused on software before anyone."

Macworld's live coverage has lots of interesting tidbits, including this exchange:

"Alan Kay said, people who love software want to do their own hardware," said Jobs.

"I can resist that," retorted Gates.

Jobs waxed philosophical. "In the consumer market at least, I think one can make a pretty strong case that outside of Windows on PCs, it's hard to see other examples of the software and hardware being decoupled working super well yet," said Jobs. "It might in the phone space over time, it might, but it's not clear."

But not surprisingly, both expressed confidence in the future of the personal computer. From CNet News.com's live report:

Both Gates and Jobs shrugged off the notion that the computer is waning as more and more work is handled via the browser. "The PC has proved to be very resilient," Jobs said, later clarifying that he was referring to the PC generally, not Windows specifically. ... At the same time, both talked about the explosion in portable devices and the opportunities there.

See the Wall Street Journal's official D conference blog for many more notes from the Gates-Jobs session, along with photos. Oh, and here's that exchange about Apple's Mac-PC ads, as reported by Macworld:

Jobs said the art of those advertisements is not to be mean, but for the guys to like each other. "His mother loves him, said Gates, ruefully, about the PC character.

"PC Guy is what makes it all work," added Jobs, but Gates seemed unconvinced.