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> Early x86 / DOS machines were very accessible. They all shipped with BASIC Yep! The original IBM PC/XT machines came with BASIC in ROM. If you turned it on
by kalleboo 7y ago
> Early x86 / DOS machines were very accessible. They all shipped with BASIC
Yep!
The original IBM PC/XT machines came with BASIC in ROM. If you turned it on without a DOS floppy disk in it, it booted into BASIC instead. On early IBM PC clones (that omitted BASIC to save cost), instead of saying "no boot disk found" they would error out with "No ROM BASIC"
The BIOS interrupt call 18h still exists to launch BASIC from ROM