[Info-vax] OS Ancestry

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 5/13/2021 9:14 PM, Rich Alderson wrote:
> =?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).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_BASIC

explains where the story come from.

<quote>
The Altair BASIC interpreter was developed by Microsoft founders Paul 
Allen and Bill Gates using a self-made Intel 8080 emulator running on a 
PDP-10 minicomputer.[1] The MS dialect is patterned on Digital Equipment 
Corporation's BASIC-PLUS on the PDP-11, which Gates had used in high 
school.[2] The first versions supported integer math only, but Monte 
Davidoff convinced them that floating-point arithmetic was possible, and 
wrote a library which became the Microsoft Binary Format.
</quote>

2. Manes, Stephen (1993). Gates. Doubleday. p. 61. ISBN 9780385420754.

Arne