Microsoft's First Product [MS-BASIC]
From: Chuck Darling
March 8, 2025
Bill Gates was exposed to PDP-10 Basic,
over terminals at his High School.
Bill resolved to write a BASIC of his own,
and he did, in college, on a PDP-10.
In 1975, Popular Electronics introduced
the $400 Altair 8800 computer kit,
based on the Intel 8080 chip.
Bill and his classmate Paul Allen
translated Bill's PDP-10 Basic into
an 8080 machine code program.
This became Microsoft's first product,
MS-Basic.
If you watch the computer technician
in the video, you'll see how ALTAIR
borrowed from DEC's front panel design,
and the BUS method of attaching expansion cards.
Watch how mind-numbingly slow
data input is through panel switches.
If it wasn't for DEC's designs and documentation, there would never
have been an Altair, or MS-Basic,
or the PC revolution that started
six years later...
Chuck
If a Solar Micro Nova roasts our
Chips, we'll have to do this
all over again...
That's what Survivor is for...
Download the files NOW,
and save them to USB
or to a writable CD.
Store a functional computer
in an old refrigerator in your
basement. (Faraday Cage)
You just might need it later ...
[Chuck's 00Cedar JPICedar ]
[ This page built with JPICedar by Chuck Darling Saturday March-8-2025 Time : 1:20p]