22 May
2020
22 May
'20
10:31 a.m.
Thanks for posting the timeline of various Basic interpreters. I
wasn't aware that Gates/Allen also wrote Basic for C64. Did download
the 8080 Basic source code out of interest, but in early 1980's had
very little to do with IBM PC.
As was working with PDP-11's at that time, really disliked 8080
instruction set and got a C64 instead which was considerably cheaper
than IBM PC and much easier to write assembly code for. C64 basic is
fairly ugly but bought a 6502 assembler and just used Basic to
display stuff on screen and call my work was done in assembly
language code. Had no trouble sampling switch data at 1 KHz using my
"toy" computer. A couple of guys from UBC Physiology decided to
build a programmable stimulator based on C64 which they were trying
to sell for $2K, considerably less than the ~$10 K that the dedicated
device that was commonly used then. Even though their timing
specifications matched the expensive device, a lot of researchers
back then didn't want a "toy" to be part of their lab setup so sales were
few.
Recently found a movie Pirates of Silicon Valley which had some of
early Microsoft history and, if depictions of individuals are true to
reality, explains why I far preferred Mac in comparison to ugly early
windows. It also helped that 68000 was a very easy processor to
migrate to after 8 years doing assembler/FORTRAN programming on a
PDP-11. Couldn't believe it when I had a full 512 Kb of RAM to play in.
On Fri, May 22, 2020, 1:43 AM jim stephens via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>Seems of interest. Will be interesting to
play with.
>https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/microsoft-open-sources-gw-basic/
On Fri, 22 May 2020, Justin Goldberg via cctalk wrote:
Interesting. I wonder if this is similar to the
qbasic code in the dos 5
(6?) source leak that's floating around. Or if Gates wrote any of it.
The Radio Shack Model 100 is believed to be the LAST BASIC that Bill
Gates actively participated in.
"Similar"? Well, sorta.
A little historical perspective:
<Over-simplified>
1964 May : Kurtz and Kemeny (Dartmouth College) developed BASIC as a
very/over simplified system for introducing beginning students to
programming. "Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code" As
simplified as they could make it with as little overhead as they
could, intended to be easier to GET STARTED with then FORTRAN. It
is unclear whether they intended that anybody might continue using
BASIC once they had completed that beginner's introduction.
1975 January : Popular Electronics ran a cover feature story about the Altair
1975 March : Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote a BASIC interpreter for
the MITS Altair 8800 using Harvard's PDP-10. The use was
unauthorized, but student use had not been explicitly forbidden. yet.
Allen completed the bootstrap program for it on the plane on their
way to Albuquerque, to meet with Ed Roberts (MITS)
1975 April : Gates and Allen formed Micro-Soft
1979 January : Micro-Soft moved from Albuquerque to Bellevue Washington.
(Their phone number was (206) 255-8080)
1979 November : Microsoft dropped the hyphen
Developed BASIC interpreters (usually in ROM) for TRS-80 ("Level ii
BASIC"), Commodore PET ("Commodor BASIC"), Apple ][ ("Applesoft
BASIC") and others.
1981 : Contracted with IBM to write BASIC for 5150, and PC-DOS
(PC-DOS consisted of purchasing Seattle Computer's 86-DOS/QDOS
("Quick and Dirty Operating System"), and enhancing it. There is
extensive lore about WHY IBM contracted with Microsoft, instead of
with Digital Research, Inc. for the operating system. THAT is a
different discussion.
1981 June 25 : Microsoft Incorporated
1981 August : release of IBM 5150, with BASIC in ROM, and BASIC and BASICA
on disk that added additional features (such as DISK) to the ROM BASIC.
Becuase the minimal 5150 came with 16K of RAM (soldered, with
sockets to expand to 64K), BASIC was squeezed, and BASICA was less squeezed.
Microsoft began selling MS-DOS to OEMs. Tim Paterson, Falcon
Technologies, SCP, exclusive V non-exclusive license, etc. are
another discussion. Differences between PC-DOS and MS-DOS exist,
but are mostly few and minor (such as IBMBIO.COM/IBMDOS.COM V IO.SYS/MSDOS.SYS)
Each OEM created their own BIOS ROMs, with occasional legal scuffles
when IBM thought that they were TOO similar (IBM had PUBLISHED the
source code for their BIOS ROM in the "PC Technical Reference
Manual", but did not publish the source code of the BASIC
ROM.) "Clean-room" reverse engineering, "bug for bug
compatability", etc. are other discussions.
Because other OEMs did not have legal access to the BASIC ROMs, they
could not run BASIC.COM/BASICA.COM , which relied heavily on
subroutines in the ROMs.
Microsoft created GWBASIC as a substitute. Almost the same as
BASICA.COM, but did not require the BASIC ROMs, so that companies
such as Compaq could provide BASIC. (NO! Compaq could NOT run the
reaal BASICA.COM. They RENAMED GQBASIC.COM into BASICA.COM to avoid
confusion for customers having both systems, thus creating lots of
confusion for customers who had the renamed GWBASIC file on their disks)
Originally, G W BASIC stood for "Gee Wiz BASIC". But Microsoft has
forgotten that, and now claims to have no idea what GW stood for.
(Similarly the file header flag of "MZ" that differentiated .EXE
files from .COM stood for Mark Zbikowski)
</Over-simplified>
and THAT is what is being touted here.
MUCH later, Quick-BASIC and QBASIC were created.