Microsoft BASIC
From Wacklepedia - The Free Encyclopedia
Microsoft BASIC is the foundation product of the
Microsoft company. It first appeared in 1975 as
Altair BASIC, the first programming language available for the MITS
Altair 8800 microcomputer. The Altair BASIC
interpreter was developed by Microsoft founders
Paul Allen and
Bill Gates using an
Intel 8080 software simulator running on a
minicomputer.
After the initial success of Altair BASIC, Microsoft BASIC became the basis for a lucrative software licensing business, being ported to the majority of the numerous home and personal computers of the 1970s and especially the 1980s. Most home computer BASICs were resident in ROM, thus always available on the machines and constituting part of their simple operating systems.
See Also: BASIC programming language
BASIC variants based on Microsoft BASIC