Historical <Code/> by Bill Gates Altair BASIC
Microsoft has just turned 50, and to mark the occasion, Bill Gates has shared a historical gift with technology enthusiasts: the source code of Altair BASIC, the program that launched Microsoft's journey into the tech world. Gates called it, “the coolest code I’ve ever written,” as he made the 157 pages of source code available for free download in PDF format.
https://www.gatesnotes.com/home/home-page-topic/reader/microsoft-original-source-code
This interpreter, which became Microsoft’s first commercial product under its original name, Micro-Soft, changed the course of computing history. The fascinating tale behind the creation of Altair BASIC is a testament to the early days of the personal computer revolution.
In January 1975, the cover of Popular Electronics magazine featured the Altair 8800 computer, developed by MITS. It was a game-changer—an affordable computer that appealed to hobbyists and enthusiasts. After seeing the magazine, Gates and his partner Paul Allen recognized the opportunity and reached out to MITS, proposing to create a BASIC interpreter to simplify programming on the Altair.
The challenge was enormous. Gates and Allen had to develop a programming language for a machine they had never seen. To tackle this, Allen wrote an emulator for the Intel 8080 processor on his PDP-10 so they could test their code without access to the actual Altair machine. The development process took several months.
The release of Altair BASIC was a pivotal moment in technology. Before it, programming involved manually entering machine code by flipping switches on a computer’s front panel. The creation of BASIC allowed users to write instructions in readable English, bringing programming to the masses and opening up new possibilities for personal computing.
