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Microsoft got its start by Bill Gates doing some dumpster diving. Back then software wasn't seen as valuable thing, only hardware was. Source code wasn't someth

Microsoft got its start by Bill Gates doing some dumpster diving. Back then software wasn't seen as valuable thing, only hardware was. Source code wasn't something to be protected, so printouts of code would be thrown in trash. And that's where Bill Gates found the source code for Basic interpreter, which he ported and it became the first Microsoft product. https://americanhistory.si.edu/comphist/gates.htm https://americanhistory.si.edu/comphist/gates.htm https://paulallen.com/Futurist/Microsoft.aspx https://paulallen.com/Futurist/Microsoft.aspx

zabzonk 2y ago
Gates and Allen wrote and copyrighted the first Microsoft Basic, and the Dec10 8080 emulator needed to run it (I've written one of these - a bit later as it happens). Allen wrote a loader (in machine code) for it on an aircraft flying down to sell it to Altair. What ever you might say about them, they were not dim.
- breadwinner 2y ago
  They were not dim, but Microsoft copied a lot, and didn't innovate. This aspect of Microsoft hasn't changed. In the 1990s, during the competition between Microsoft and Sun Microsystems, Sun's CEO, Scott McNealy, compared Bill Gates to Ginger Rogers. This analogy suggested that, like Rogers, who danced everything Fred Astaire did but backward and in high heels, Gates was adept at following and adapting competitors' innovations. This comparison was part of Sun's broader critique of Microsoft's business practices at the time. "It has been noted that everything Astaire did, Rogers was able to do -- backwards and in high heels. That's high praise for the nimble Ms. Rogers. But for a would-be visionary, following someone else's lead -- no matter how skillfully -- simply doesn't cut it." https://web.archive.org/web/19991013082222/www.sun.com/dot-com/realitycheck/headsup990813.html https://web.archive.org/web/19991013082222/www.sun.com/dot-c...
  - zabzonk 2y ago
    Yes, well Scott McNealy will never be my idea of a brilliant man. Or Sun of a particularly good company - where are they now? I remember one investment bank I worked for, starting: IT tech: Would you like a Sun workstation? Me: Nope, I would like a top of range Windows PC, with two or more screens. IT tech: Yeah, OK, all the traders say that too. We're throwing those Suns in the dumpster.
    - breadwinner 2y ago
      Sun made incredibly good hardware and software. They were incredibly good technologists, responsible for lots of innovations, but they were bad at business. So in that sense they were the opposite of Microsoft.
      - zabzonk 2y ago
        Some quite good hardware, I must admit - their servers were good. Workstations less so, and ludicrously expensive for what they were.
    - vlovich123 2y ago
      The spiritual successor for Sun machines is Oxide (lots of ex-Sun folks). And Sun got acquired by Oracle so it’s still technically around on the software side via virtual box and Java.
      - markus_zhang 2y ago
        I love Oxide's podcast. I checked its career page a few times but they are only hiring for field sales.
      - snovymgodym 2y ago
        That's the point though. What's left of Sun is basically a startup founded by a few ex-employees, some open-source software, and the rest of their IP being milked by Larry Ellison.
        2y ago
  - dullcrisp 2y ago
    Seems that Ginger got the last laugh though.
  - ForOldHack 2y ago
    "This aspect of Microsoft hasn't changed." Now that is quite a dig, but I am going to have to completely agree, until they got Coulter but after that it is pretty much Microshaft.
shmerl 2y ago
Don't forget the infamous Open Letter to Hobbyists that followed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists
- salgernon 2y ago
  One minor thing to consider is that hobbyists weren't distributing the source code (as posted in the OP) but trading the paper tape of the executable interpreter. They wanted the interpreter so they could write their own software that was probably unrelated to basic itself, that was just a means to an end. The industry pretty quickly moved to incorporate basic in rom on many platforms and microsoft was able to capitalize on that integration through licensing. I don't think his letter did much other than antagonize hobbyists - but they made a lot licensing to the hardware manufacturers later on (and the hardware was truly more valuable with basic on board. (One of my all time to this day favorite computers from that era is the TRS-80 Model 100. I don't remember if Microsoft provided the entire software stack for it, but I believe it was the last product that Bill Gates actually contributed to the software development.)
  - shmerl 2y ago
    Licensing programming tools was staple MS, since it also provided lock-in. The letter comes off as the complete opposite of open source approach to it.
  - themadturk 2y ago
    According to Gates, he wrote the Model 100's software himself. It was indeed his final major software project as a coder.
- ThrowawayR2 2y ago
  And he won that argument. The steady movement away from Free Software licenses to shared source is because developers want to get paid by people using the code they created just as Gates describes in the letter. Even Bruce Perens is trying to hammer out a Post-Open Source license that's proprietary in all but name.
esafak 2y ago
When I look back at that era now I am amazed at how Gary Killdall failed to capitalize on his amazing position as the creator of CP/M, which was the dominant 8-bit OS and ran on numerous popular platforms, like the 8080, 8086, Z80, and the 68000. When IBM entered the PC market, Killdall and IBM could not come to an agreement so MS stepped in and licensed then purchased an imitation of CP/M called 86-DOS, which IBM offered in addition their own PC DOS. Killdall's company created an 8086 OS called CP/M-86 but it was more expensive than IBM's PC DOS and never took off. IBM did not want the liability of having contested code, so they let MS hold that bag and the rest is history.
ThrowawayR2 2y ago
> "...so printouts of code would be thrown in trash. And that's where Bill Gates found the source code for Basic interpreter, which he ported and it became the first Microsoft product" Both sources you link to say Allen and Gates pulled listings of the PDP-10 operating system out (probably DEC's TOPS-10?) of the trash. BASIC is not an operating system. So your claim is debunked by your own sources. "...digging out the operating system listings from the trash and studying those. Really not just banging away to find bugs like monkeys[laughs], but actually studying the code to see what was wrong." https://americanhistory.si.edu/comphist/gates.htm https://americanhistory.si.edu/comphist/gates.htm "...He and Bill would go “dumpster diving” in C-Cubed’s garbage to find discarded printouts with source code for the machine’s operating system..." https://paulallen.com/Futurist/Microsoft.aspx https://paulallen.com/Futurist/Microsoft.aspx
- breadwinner 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - ThrowawayR2 2y ago
    What part of that paragraph you quoted suggests that Microsoft BASIC wasn't original work?
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - sanswork 2y ago
    That's not what that says at all. It says that the language was slightly different depending on the platform. Microsoft basic wasn't the first basic interpreter which is a different claim than Microsoft basic source was copied from another interpreter.
  - pdw 2y ago
    That article is a bit confusing because it's using the term "BASIC" to refer to both the language and Microsoft's implementation. But what it's trying to say is that Microsoft's BASIC implementation was licensed by many computer companies (including Commodore and Atari) and that those companies changed and extended it in incompatible ways.
santiagobasulto 2y ago
I couldn't find the precise reference that mentions that they found the source code for the Basic interpreter and just "copied/ported" it. I did read they'd go "dumpster diving" to learn assembly. But not that they found and just ported the source code. Where is it?
- dekhn 2y ago
  I think it comes from a misread of the text in the gates interview linked in the comment: "r. We were moving ahead very rapidly: BASIC, FORTRAN, LISP, PDP-10 machine language, digging out the operating system listings from the trash and studying those. Really not just banging away to find bugs like monkeys[laughs], but actually studying the code to see what was wrong." My understanding is that they saw the source implementation for other BASICs (on mainframes or whatever they were called at the time) but their code is mostly their own. Few if any programmers spring fully-formed from the head of zeus (although paul allen was close) and plenty of valuable intellectual property was originally created elsewhere.
  - breadwinner 2y ago
    "The listings evidently included Basic for the PDP-10, but it was Allen who did the Assembler programming to simulate the Altair, while Gates, Monte Davidoff and later Allen worked on a Basic interpreter for the machine." See https://www.theregister.com/2000/06/29/bill_gates_roots/ https://www.theregister.com/2000/06/29/bill_gates_roots/
- CamperBob2 2y ago
  "Just porting" is doing some seriously heavy lifting, if it's referring to porting something from a mainframe to one of the micros of the day.

zabzonk 2y ago

Gates and Allen wrote and copyrighted the first Microsoft Basic, and the Dec10 8080 emulator needed to run it (I've written one of these - a bit later as it happens). Allen wrote a loader (in machine code) for it on an aircraft flying down to sell it to Altair. What ever you might say about them, they were not dim.

breadwinner 2y ago
They were not dim, but Microsoft copied a lot, and didn't innovate. This aspect of Microsoft hasn't changed. In the 1990s, during the competition between Microsoft and Sun Microsystems, Sun's CEO, Scott McNealy, compared Bill Gates to Ginger Rogers. This analogy suggested that, like Rogers, who danced everything Fred Astaire did but backward and in high heels, Gates was adept at following and adapting competitors' innovations. This comparison was part of Sun's broader critique of Microsoft's business practices at the time. "It has been noted that everything Astaire did, Rogers was able to do -- backwards and in high heels. That's high praise for the nimble Ms. Rogers. But for a would-be visionary, following someone else's lead -- no matter how skillfully -- simply doesn't cut it." https://web.archive.org/web/19991013082222/www.sun.com/dot-com/realitycheck/headsup990813.html https://web.archive.org/web/19991013082222/www.sun.com/dot-c...
- zabzonk 2y ago
  Yes, well Scott McNealy will never be my idea of a brilliant man. Or Sun of a particularly good company - where are they now? I remember one investment bank I worked for, starting: IT tech: Would you like a Sun workstation? Me: Nope, I would like a top of range Windows PC, with two or more screens. IT tech: Yeah, OK, all the traders say that too. We're throwing those Suns in the dumpster.
  - breadwinner 2y ago
    Sun made incredibly good hardware and software. They were incredibly good technologists, responsible for lots of innovations, but they were bad at business. So in that sense they were the opposite of Microsoft.
    - zabzonk 2y ago
      Some quite good hardware, I must admit - their servers were good. Workstations less so, and ludicrously expensive for what they were.
  - vlovich123 2y ago
    The spiritual successor for Sun machines is Oxide (lots of ex-Sun folks). And Sun got acquired by Oracle so it’s still technically around on the software side via virtual box and Java.
    - markus_zhang 2y ago
      I love Oxide's podcast. I checked its career page a few times but they are only hiring for field sales.
    - snovymgodym 2y ago
      That's the point though. What's left of Sun is basically a startup founded by a few ex-employees, some open-source software, and the rest of their IP being milked by Larry Ellison.
      - 2y ago
- dullcrisp 2y ago
  Seems that Ginger got the last laugh though.
- ForOldHack 2y ago
  "This aspect of Microsoft hasn't changed." Now that is quite a dig, but I am going to have to completely agree, until they got Coulter but after that it is pretty much Microshaft.

shmerl 2y ago

Don't forget the infamous Open Letter to Hobbyists that followed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists

salgernon 2y ago
One minor thing to consider is that hobbyists weren't distributing the source code (as posted in the OP) but trading the paper tape of the executable interpreter. They wanted the interpreter so they could write their own software that was probably unrelated to basic itself, that was just a means to an end. The industry pretty quickly moved to incorporate basic in rom on many platforms and microsoft was able to capitalize on that integration through licensing. I don't think his letter did much other than antagonize hobbyists - but they made a lot licensing to the hardware manufacturers later on (and the hardware was truly more valuable with basic on board. (One of my all time to this day favorite computers from that era is the TRS-80 Model 100. I don't remember if Microsoft provided the entire software stack for it, but I believe it was the last product that Bill Gates actually contributed to the software development.)
- shmerl 2y ago
  Licensing programming tools was staple MS, since it also provided lock-in. The letter comes off as the complete opposite of open source approach to it.
- themadturk 2y ago
  According to Gates, he wrote the Model 100's software himself. It was indeed his final major software project as a coder.
ThrowawayR2 2y ago
And he won that argument. The steady movement away from Free Software licenses to shared source is because developers want to get paid by people using the code they created just as Gates describes in the letter. Even Bruce Perens is trying to hammer out a Post-Open Source license that's proprietary in all but name.

esafak 2y ago

When I look back at that era now I am amazed at how Gary Killdall failed to capitalize on his amazing position as the creator of CP/M, which was the dominant 8-bit OS and ran on numerous popular platforms, like the 8080, 8086, Z80, and the 68000. When IBM entered the PC market, Killdall and IBM could not come to an agreement so MS stepped in and licensed then purchased an imitation of CP/M called 86-DOS, which IBM offered in addition their own PC DOS. Killdall's company created an 8086 OS called CP/M-86 but it was more expensive than IBM's PC DOS and never took off. IBM did not want the liability of having contested code, so they let MS hold that bag and the rest is history.

ThrowawayR2 2y ago

> "...so printouts of code would be thrown in trash. And that's where Bill Gates found the source code for Basic interpreter, which he ported and it became the first Microsoft product" Both sources you link to say Allen and Gates pulled listings of the PDP-10 operating system out (probably DEC's TOPS-10?) of the trash. BASIC is not an operating system. So your claim is debunked by your own sources. "...digging out the operating system listings from the trash and studying those. Really not just banging away to find bugs like monkeys[laughs], but actually studying the code to see what was wrong." https://americanhistory.si.edu/comphist/gates.htm https://americanhistory.si.edu/comphist/gates.htm "...He and Bill would go “dumpster diving” in C-Cubed’s garbage to find discarded printouts with source code for the machine’s operating system..." https://paulallen.com/Futurist/Microsoft.aspx https://paulallen.com/Futurist/Microsoft.aspx

breadwinner 2y ago
[flagged]
- ThrowawayR2 2y ago
  What part of that paragraph you quoted suggests that Microsoft BASIC wasn't original work?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- sanswork 2y ago
  That's not what that says at all. It says that the language was slightly different depending on the platform. Microsoft basic wasn't the first basic interpreter which is a different claim than Microsoft basic source was copied from another interpreter.
- pdw 2y ago
  That article is a bit confusing because it's using the term "BASIC" to refer to both the language and Microsoft's implementation. But what it's trying to say is that Microsoft's BASIC implementation was licensed by many computer companies (including Commodore and Atari) and that those companies changed and extended it in incompatible ways.

santiagobasulto 2y ago

I couldn't find the precise reference that mentions that they found the source code for the Basic interpreter and just "copied/ported" it. I did read they'd go "dumpster diving" to learn assembly. But not that they found and just ported the source code. Where is it?

dekhn 2y ago
I think it comes from a misread of the text in the gates interview linked in the comment: "r. We were moving ahead very rapidly: BASIC, FORTRAN, LISP, PDP-10 machine language, digging out the operating system listings from the trash and studying those. Really not just banging away to find bugs like monkeys[laughs], but actually studying the code to see what was wrong." My understanding is that they saw the source implementation for other BASICs (on mainframes or whatever they were called at the time) but their code is mostly their own. Few if any programmers spring fully-formed from the head of zeus (although paul allen was close) and plenty of valuable intellectual property was originally created elsewhere.
- breadwinner 2y ago
  "The listings evidently included Basic for the PDP-10, but it was Allen who did the Assembler programming to simulate the Altair, while Gates, Monte Davidoff and later Allen worked on a Basic interpreter for the machine." See https://www.theregister.com/2000/06/29/bill_gates_roots/ https://www.theregister.com/2000/06/29/bill_gates_roots/
CamperBob2 2y ago
"Just porting" is doing some seriously heavy lifting, if it's referring to porting something from a mainframe to one of the micros of the day.