Showing posts with label BASIC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BASIC. Show all posts

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Basic for the 8080

Most people believe that the first BASIC published by Bill Gates was for the 8080, which accounts for the last 4 digits of the main phone number for Microsoft Corporation. However, I'm almost certain that I saw a Microsoft logo banner on the Basic interpreter that I used for a project I did when I was in graduate school. My recollection of that project, while a bit fuzzy (We're talking 1978 - 34 years ago!), is that the CPU in the machine on which I developed it was an Intel 4004, and that the interpreter displayed a Microsoft copyright notice when it loaded. Nevertheless, since the 8080 had been around since 1974, it might well have been the CPU in that box.