[Info-vax] OS Ancestry

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 5/14/2021 7:11 PM, Rich Alderson wrote:
> =?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.

And in this case it claims that Basic+ goes back to 1970
and Bill Gates graduated high school in 1973.

Arne