10 Jan
2012
10 Jan
'12
6:31 p.m.
On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 12:32 PM, Cameron Kaiser <spectre at floodgap.com> wrote:
My bet is that Tramiel didn't want to delay the
machines to market developing
the software, nor did he want to "waste" R&D costs on building a better
BASIC
I'm sure that's true.
but I'm quite
sure his terms with Microsoft didn't require him to give Gates a penny
even if he did muck with it. Tramiel knew he had Gates over the barrel back
then and I doubt very much Jack would have left such a loophole.
That's more what I was trying to describe. Tramiel wouldn't have gone
back to Microsoft for a "new" BASIC on new terms - he got his bargain
back in the PET days and wouldn't have voluntarily put himself under
less favorable terms moving forward.
CBM BASIC 3.5 and 7.0 (and 10.0?) were, as I understand them, more
like extensions on the original code rather than a new development
effort. I could be woefully ignorant, however - once I got an Amiga
1000 (and AmigaDOS 1.2 was released), I spent far less time in the
8-bit world.
-ethan