3 ms·
MS has been around far longer than most likely know. Keep in mind that the company started out supplying a Fortran compiler for the Altair 8800. On paper tape
by digi_owl 10y ago
MS has been around far longer than most likely know.
Keep in mind that the company started out supplying a Fortran compiler for the Altair 8800. On paper tape no less.
And their BASIC interpreter was the BASIC to have for a decade or more.
Excel (supposedly the last MS product with actual Gates written code inside) got started on Apple hardware.
- whatever_dude 10y agoMicrosoft also helped create the MSX, which not a lot of people in the US know about but was a beloved computer in South America and Japan.
- woliveirajr 10y agoAnd, so, was my first computer and my first BASIC programing. Just to read someone saying that people who began programing in basic are already beyond repair ;)
- laumars 10y agoPersonally I preferred Locomotive BASIC over Microsoft BASIC. Is that true about Excel? In one interview with Gates I watched, he commented that QBasic was the last product he wrote.
- rskar 10y ago>the company started out supplying a Fortran compiler for the Altair 8800 I would suppose maybe at some point they did (not sure on this) but it's long been my understanding that BASIC was their start. Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft: Microsoft was founded by Paul Allen and Bill Gates on April 4, 1975, to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800: The computer bus designed for the Altair was to become a de facto standard in the form of the S-100 bus, and the first programming language for the machine was Microsoft's founding product, Altair BASIC.
- qwertyuiop924 10y agoAnd as we all know, Altair BASIC is the software about which "An Open Letter To Hobbyists" was written.