> Microsoft didn’t “port” their software in the traditional sense. It was a clean rewrite for each platform. Not true. See https://devblogs.microsoft.com/comma

> Microsoft didn’t “port” their software in the traditional sense. It was a clean rewrite for each platform. Not true. See https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/microsoft-open-sources-gw-basic/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/microsoft-open-so... in particular: > This source was ‘translated’? > Each of the assembly source files contains a header stating This translation created 10-Feb-83 by Version 4.3 > Since the Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) of the early processors used in home and personal computers weren’t spectacularly different from one another, Microsoft was able to generate a substantial amount of the code for a port from the sources of a master implementation. (Alas, sorry, we’re unable to open-source the ISA translator.) You also write: > For instance, the Apple // graphics memory layout was really weird. That’s largely irrelevant because the core of Microsoft BASIC was text-only and had no graphics support. Graphics support was an extension, which was highly platform-specific, since platforms varied greatly in terms of their graphical capabilities and how those capabilities were implemented