[Info-vax] OS Ancestry

[Rich Alderson]

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

> On 5/13/2021 9:14 PM, Rich Alderson wrote:

>> 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.

I stand by my access to the authors of MS BASIC rather than an third party who
does not understand that BASIC for the PDP-11

	*DID NOT EXIST WHEN THEY WERE IN HIGH SCHOOL*.

Wikipedia is very often wrong.

-- 
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