"As the software colossus explained in a Wednesday post, Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote the company's first product, BASIC for the Altair 8800 microcomputer and the Intel 8080 processor that powered it, in 1975. A year later Gates and Ric Weiland, Microsoft's second employee, ported Microsoft BASIC to the 6502 processor. In 1977, Commodore Computer licensed it for $25,000 and used Microsoft BASIC in its PET, VIC-20, and Commodore 64 machines."
"The code Microsoft has released is version 1.1, which apparently contains fixes to the garbage collector identified by Commodore and jointly implemented in 1978 by Commodore engineer John Feagans and Bill Gates. Commodore PET users would know it as BASIC V2. The release is assembly language source code - 6,955 lines of it - and Microsoft placed it on GitHub, under the MIT License that allows free unrestricted use, and even resale."
"If you get it running, Microsoft advertises the code's main features as: Full BASIC language implementation Floating-point arithmetic String handling and manipulation Array support (both integer and string arrays) Mathematical functions and operators Input/output operations You'll also have the chance to enjoy "Efficient memory utilization for 8-bit systems" plus "String garbage collection" and "Dynamic variable storage.""
Microsoft released the 1976 port of Microsoft BASIC for the MOS 6502 processor as version 1.1. The release contains garbage-collector fixes jointly implemented in 1978 by Commodore engineer John Feagans and Bill Gates. Commodore licensed BASIC in 1977 for $25,000 and used it in the PET, VIC-20, and Commodore 64, with the VIC-20 and C64 selling millions. The source comprises 6,955 lines of 6502 assembly and is hosted on GitHub under the MIT License, permitting free unrestricted use and resale. The code includes conditional compilation for several early systems and implements full BASIC features, floating-point arithmetic, string handling, arrays, math functions, I/O, efficient 8-bit memory use, string garbage collection, and dynamic variable storage.
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