Maybe you did n’t realize this , but Microsoft is in reality older than Apple . While Apple commemorate its 49th anniversary earlier this week on April 1 , Microsoft will celebrate its 50th anniversary on April 4 . To record the event , Microsoft cobalt - founder Bill Gates hasposted the beginning computer code for Microsoft ’s first - ever product , Altair BASIC .
The story of the intersection begins with the computer credited with starting the personal information processing system revolution , theMITS Altair 8800 . ( Yeah yeah yeah , I know what you ’re thinking , “ What about theApple II ? I believe this was Macworld ! ” EvenPCWorld state it ’s the greatest PC of all meter ! ) But the Altair 8800 has a unique station in story . When it was featured on the cover song of the January 1975 issue ofPopular Electronics , enthusiasts everywhere were excited about its potential , including Bill Gates and Paul Allen , then students at Harvard .
Popular Electronics
The magazine cover that launched the PC revolution.
Gates and Allen thought that the Altair 8800 was a sign that the “ PC revolution was imminent , ” as Gates arrange it . They decided to make a version of BASIC that can tend on the Altair – BASIC , for you young whippersnappers who compensate too much attention to those darn TokToks or whatever you call ’em , is a computer language design for masses with , in Gates ’s words , “ no computer experience . ” BASIC on an Altair 8800 would broaden the gadget ’s market and convey personal computing one step closer to the masses .
Gates details some of the thing they had to do to make Altair BASIC a actual product , including not having actual accession to the Intel 8080 chip that was in the Altair 8800 , how to handle memory limit ( you thought8 GB was diddly dumpy , try 256bytes ! ) , and rushing to make a tight deadline . Eventually , they entered a licensing concord with MITS , and Micro - Soft ( the name originally had a dash ) was born .
Asthe story goes , Steve Wozniak saw the Altair 8800 work Gates ’ BASIC at a meeting of the Homebrew Electronics Club . However , the Intel chip was too expensive , so he wrote a Modern version of Gates ’ Altair BASIC for the cheaper MOS 6502 bit , which became the Apple I with the assistance of a guy cable named Steve Jobs . A few age later , they releasedthe nifty personal computer of all time , the Apple II , and well , you probably know the rest . If you don’t , here ’s a review .
The magazine cover that launched the PC revolution.
But back to Microsoft . TheAltair BASIC rootage computer code is available as a PDF download , cover 157 pages . Gates is “ super proud of how it turned out , ” and considering what Altair BASIC led to , he should be . If you are a developer or a estimator geek , it ’s deserving a look . If you ’re concerned in learning more about Bill Gates before Microsoft , read his autobiography , Source Code : My Beginnings .
Microsoft / Bill Gates
