[Info-vax] OS Ancestry

[Rich Alderson]

=?UTF-8?Q?Arne_Vajh=c3=b8j?= <arne at vajhoej.dk> writes:

[ snip ]

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC-PLUS

> <quote>
> BASIC-PLUS is an extended dialect of the BASIC programming language that 
> was developed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) for use on its 
> RSTS/E time-sharing operating system for the PDP-11 series of 16-bit 
> minicomputers in the early 1970s through the 1980s.
> 
> BASIC-PLUS was based on BASIC-8 for the TSS/8, itself based very closely 
> on the original Dartmouth BASIC. BASIC-PLUS added a number of new 
> structures, as well as features from JOSS concerning conditional 
> statements and formatting. In turn, BASIC-PLUS was the version on which 
> the original Microsoft BASIC was patterned.

Wrong.

Microsoft BASIC (originally "Altair BASIC") was based on the BASIC for the
PDP-10 (later rechristened the "DECsystem-10" when a new processor, the KI-10,
was introducec).  Bill Gates and Paul Allen learned BASIC first on a GE-635
running GECOS (on the GE Information Systems network), then expanded their use
on a PDP-10 in Seattle.

DISCLAIMER: I worked for Paul Allen for 15 years, building his computer museum,
and was a first reader for his autobiography, so I'm very well aware of where
he learned BASIC.  In point of fact, neither of them ever programmed on a
PDP-11 (personal communication from PGA).

-- 
Rich Alderson					  news at alderson.users.panix.com
      Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
	  omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
									--Galen