Microsoft BASIC is the foundation

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consist ...

product of the

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...

company and evolved into a line of BASIC interpreters and

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs tha ...

(s) adapted for many different

microcomputer A microcomputer is a small, relatively inexpensive computer having a central processing unit (CPU) made out of a microprocessor. The computer also includes memory and input/output (I/O) circuitry together mounted on a printed circuit board (PC ...

s. It first appeared in 1975 as Altair BASIC, which was the first version of

BASIC BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...

published by Microsoft as well as the first

high-level programming language In computer science, a high-level programming language is a programming language with strong abstraction from the details of the computer. In contrast to low-level programming languages, it may use natural language ''elements'', be easier to u ...

available for the

Altair 8800 The Altair 8800 is a microcomputer designed in 1974 by MITS and based on the Intel 8080 CPU. Interest grew quickly after it was featured on the cover of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics and was sold by mail order through advertiseme ...

microcomputer. During the home computer craze during the late-1970s and early-1980s, BASIC was ported to and supplied with many home computer designs. Slight variations to add support for machine-specific functions, especially graphics, led to a profusion of related designs like Commodore BASIC and Atari Microsoft BASIC. As the early home computers gave way to newer designs like the

IBM Personal Computer The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a tea ...

and

Apple Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software ...

, BASIC was no longer as widely used, although it retained a strong following. The release of

Visual Basic Visual Basic is a name for a family of programming languages from Microsoft. It may refer to: * Visual Basic .NET (now simply referred to as "Visual Basic"), the current version of Visual Basic launched in 2002 which runs on .NET * Visual Basic ( ...

reboosted its popularity and it remains in wide use on

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

platforms in its most recent incarnation, Visual Basic .NET

Altair BASIC and early microcomputers

The Altair BASIC interpreter was developed by Microsoft founders

Paul Allen Paul Gardner Allen (January 21, 1953 – October 15, 2018) was an American business magnate, computer programmer, researcher, investor, and philanthropist. He co-founded Microsoft Corporation with childhood friend Bill Gates in 1975, whic ...

and

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...

using a self-written Intel 8080 emulator running on a

PDP-10 Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)'s PDP-10, later marketed as the DECsystem-10, is a mainframe computer family manufactured beginning in 1966 and discontinued in 1983. 1970s models and beyond were marketed under the DECsystem-10 name, espec ...

minicomputer A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller general purpose computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold at a much lower price than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, ' ...

.Martin S. Fridson, ''How to be a billionaire: proven strategies from the titans of wealth'', John Wiley and Sons, 1999 pages 116-120 The MS dialect is patterned on

Digital Equipment Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president un ...

's BASIC-PLUS on the

PDP-11 The PDP-11 is a series of 16-bit minicomputers sold by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) from 1970 into the 1990s, one of a set of products in the Programmed Data Processor (PDP) series. In total, around 600,000 PDP-11s of all models were sol ...

, which Gates had used in

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

. The first versions supported integer math only, but Monte Davidoff convinced them that

floating-point arithmetic In computing, floating-point arithmetic (FP) is arithmetic that represents real numbers approximately, using an integer with a fixed precision, called the significand, scaled by an integer exponent of a fixed base. For example, 12.345 can be ...

was possible, and wrote a library which became the Microsoft Binary Format. Altair BASIC was delivered on

paper tape Five- and eight-hole punched paper tape Paper tape reader on the Harwell computer with a small piece of five-hole tape connected in a circle – creating a physical program loop Punched tape or perforated paper tape is a form of data storage ...

and in its original version took 4 KB of memory. The following functions and statements were available: LIST, NEW, PRINT, INPUT, IF...THEN, FOR...NEXT, SQR, RND, SIN, LET, USR, DATA, READ, REM, CLEAR, STOP, TAB, RESTORE, ABS, END, INT, RETURN, STEP, GOTO, and GOSUB. There were no string variables in 4K BASIC and single-precision 32-bit floating point was the only numeric type supported. Variable names consisted of one letter (A–Z) or one letter followed by one digit (0–9), thus allowing up to 286 numeric variables. For machines with more memory, the 8 KB version added 31 additional statements and support for string variables and their related operations like MID$ and string concatenation. String variables were denoted with a $ suffix, which remained in later versions of the language. Later on, Microsoft released the 12K Extended BASIC, which included double precision 64-bit variables, IF...THEN...ELSE structures, user defined functions, more advanced program editing commands, and descriptive error messages as opposed to error numbers. Numeric variables now had three basic types, % denoted 16-bit integers, # denoted 64-bit doubles, and ! denoted 32-bit singles, but this was the default format so the ! is rarely seen in programs. The extended 8 KB version was then generalized into BASIC-80 (8080/85, Z80), and ported into BASIC-68 ( 6800), BASIC-69 (

6809 The Motorola 6809 ("''sixty-eight-oh-nine''") is an 8-bit microprocessor with some 16-bit features. It was designed by Motorola's Terry Ritter and Joel Boney and introduced in 1978. Although source compatible with the earlier Motorola 6800, the ...

), and 6502-BASIC. The 6502 had somewhat less dense

assembler code In computer programming, assembly language (or assembler language, or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as Assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence ...

and expanded in size to just under 8K for the single precision version, or 9K for a version using an intermediate 40-bit floating point format in place of the original 32-bit version. This new 40-bit format became the most common as it was used on most 6502-based machines of the era. It was also ported to the 16-bit BASIC-86 ( 8086/88). The final major release of BASIC-80 was version 5.x, which appeared in 1981 and added support for 40-character variable names, WHILE...WEND loops, dynamic string allocation, and several other features. BASIC 5.x removed the ability to crunch program lines. The core command set and syntax are the same in all implementations of Microsoft BASIC and, generally speaking, a program can be run on any version if it does not use hardware-specific features or double precision numbers (not supported in some implementations).

Licenses to home computer makers

After the initial success of Altair BASIC, Microsoft BASIC became the basis for a lucrative software licensing business, being ported to the majority of the numerous

home A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it. ...

and other

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or te ...

s of the 1970s and especially the 1980s, and extended along the way. Contrary to the original Altair BASIC, most home computer BASICs are resident in ROM, and thus are available on the machines at power-on in the form of the characteristic "READY." prompt. Hence, Microsoft's and other variants of BASIC constitute a significant and visible part of the

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

of many home computers' rudimentary

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

s. By 1981, Microsoft BASIC was so popular that even companies that already had a BASIC licensed the language, such as IBM for its

Personal Computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or te ...

, and

Atari Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French publisher Atari SA through a subsidiary named Atari Interactive. The original Atari, Inc., founded in Sunnyvale, Ca ...

, which sold both Atari Microsoft BASIC and its own Atari BASIC. IBM's Don Estridge said, "Microsoft BASIC had hundreds of thousands of users around the world. How are you going to argue with that?" Microsoft licensed similar versions to companies that competed with each other. After licensing IBM Advanced BASIC (BASICA) to IBM, for example, Microsoft licensed the compatible GW-BASIC to makers of

PC clones IBM PC compatible computers are similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT, all from computer giant IBM, that are able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such computers were referred to as PC clones, IBM clones or IBM PC clones. ...

, and also sold copies to retail customers. The company similarly licensed an Applesoft-compatible BASIC to VTech for its Laser 128 clone.

Extended BASIC-80

* Tangerine Microtan 65 * Spectravideo SV-318 and SV-328 Known variants: * ''NCR Basic Plus 6'', released in the first quarter of 1977 for the

NCR 7200 model VI NCR Corporation, previously known as National Cash Register, is an American software, consulting and technology company providing several professional services and electronic products. It manufactures self-service kiosks, point-of-sale termin ...

data-entry terminal. The adaptation of Microsoft's Extended BASIC-80 was carried out by

Marc McDonald Marc B. McDonald is an American who was Microsoft's first salaried employee (not counting Monte Davidoff, who wrote the math package for BASIC for a flat fee). He is credited with designing and implementing the 8-bit File Allocation Table file ...

in 1976/1977.

Disk BASIC-80

MBASIC is available for CP/M-80 and

ISIS-II ISIS, short for Intel System Implementation Supervisor, is an operating system for early Intel microprocessors like the 8080. It was originally developed by Ken Burgett and Jim Stein under the management of Steve Hanna and Terry Opdendyk for the ...

. Also available for TEKDOS. MBASIC is a stripped-down BASIC-80 with only hardware-neutral functions. However, due to the popularity of CP/M, the great majority of Z80 machines ran MBASIC, rather than a version customized for specific hardware (TRS-80 BASIC was one of the few exceptions). Microsoft's CP/M card for the Apple II included a modified version of MBASIC that incorporated some of the graphics commands from Applesoft BASIC, such as HPLOT, but the full command set is not supported.

Standalone Disk BASIC-80

The first implementation to use an 8-bit variant of the

File Allocation Table File Allocation Table (FAT) is a file system developed for personal computers. Originally developed in 1977 for use on floppy disks, it was adapted for use on hard disks and other devices. It is often supported for compatibility reasons by ...

was a BASIC adaptation for an Intel 8080-based NCR 7200, 7520, or 7530 data-entry terminal with 8-inch floppy disks in 1977/1978.

Basic compiler

Microsoft offered a BASIC compiler for BASIC-80 under CP/M, by 1980 or before. The compiler executable was named BASCOM or BASCOM32.

TRS-80 Level II/III BASIC

The TRS-80 computer was offered initially with an adaption of Li-Chen Wang's Tiny BASIC ( Level I BASIC); within a few months this was replaced by a port of BASIC-80 which incorporated some of Level I BASIC's command set, particularly the commands for setting graphics characters. Level II BASIC contained some of the features of Extended BASIC, although due to the need to include Level I commands such as SET and PSET, other features such as descriptive error messages still had to be left out; these were subsequently added into TRS-80 Disk BASIC. The TRS-80 Model 4 had a newer disk-based BASIC that utilized the BASIC-80 5.x core, which included support for 40-character variable names. Thus the ability to crunch program lines (without spaces between keywords and arguments) was no longer possible as it had been in Level II. It was no longer necessary to reserve string space. New features included user defined functions (DEF FN) and access to TRSDOS 6 system functions via a SYSTEM keyword. A modified version published later by OS provider Logical Systems, in the LS-DOS Version 6.3 update, added single-letter access to BASIC control functions (like LIST and EDIT) and direct access to LS-DOS supervisor calls. The program edit environment was still line-oriented. The facility available in Level II to sort arrays (CMD"O") was not available; programmers and users had to devise their own workarounds.

BASIC-86

The first implementation as a standalone disk-based language system was for

Seattle Computer Products Seattle Computer Products (SCP) was a Tukwila, Washington, microcomputer hardware company which was one of the first manufacturers of computer systems based on the 16-bit Intel 8086 processor. SCP began shipping its first S-100 bus 8086 CPU ...

S-100 bus 8086 CPU card in 1979. It was utilizing an 8-bit FAT file system. Microsoft also offered a version of Standalone BASIC-86 for SBC-86/12 for Intel's 8086 Single Board Computer platform in 1980.

Texas Instruments BASIC

This is the version of BASIC used on the TI-99/4A home computer. Although very similar to Microsoft BASIC, it was not written by Microsoft as was widely rumored. According to TI Engineer H. Schuurman, "They (in the form of Bob Greenberg of Microsoft) were contracted to develop BASIC for the SR-70 (which is also sometimes referred to as the 99/7), but the BASIC for the 99/4 was developed in-house." TI-99/4 BASIC was based on Dartmouth BASIC and complies to the American National Standard for minimal BASIC (ANSI X3.60-1978).

6502 BASIC

Microsoft ported BASIC-80 to the 6502 during the summer of 1976; it was mostly a straight port of the 8K version of BASIC-80 and included the same prompts asking for memory size and if the user wanted floating point functions enabled or not (having them active used an extra 135 bytes of memory). The earliest machines to use 6502 BASIC were the Ohio Scientific Model 500 and KIM-1 in 1977. 6502 BASIC included certain features from Extended BASIC such as user-defined functions and descriptive error messages, but omitted other features like double precision variables and the PRINT USING statement. As compensation for not having double precision variables, Microsoft included 40-bit floating point support instead of BASIC-80's 32-bit floating point and string allocation was dynamic (thus the user did not have to reserve string space like in BASIC-80). However, vendors could still request BASIC with 32-bit floating point for a slightly smaller memory footprint; as one example, Disk BASIC for the Atari 8-bits used 32-bit floating point rather than 40-bit. Standard features of the 9K version of Microsoft 6502 BASIC included: * GET statement to detect a key press. * Line crunching program lines do not require any spaces except between the line number and statement. * Only supported variable types are string, single precision, and integer (arrays only). * Long variable names are not supported and only the first two characters are recognized. * Dynamic string allocation. 6502 BASIC lacked a standardized set of commands for disk and printer output; these were up to the vendor to add and varied widely with each implementation. Later implementations of 6502 Basic (1983–) were improved in many aspects. While early Commodore machines (

VIC-20 The VIC-20 (known as the VC-20 in Germany and the VIC-1001 in Japan) is an 8-bit home computer that was sold by Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commodore's first personal computer, the ...

, C64) had a BASIC very close to 6502 MS BASIC, later Commodore 8-bit machines (TED series, PET, and C128; named as V3.5, V4.0, and V7.0) had numerous improvements to make BASIC more useful and user friendly: * Disk commands (DIRECTORY, DSAVE, DLOAD, BACKUP, HEADER, SCRATCH, COLLECT, DVERIFY, COPY, DELETE, RENAME, etc.) * Graphics commands (CIRCLE, DRAW, BOX, COLOR (of background, border, etc.), PAINT, SCALE) * Graphics block copy and logical operation with the existing graphical screen (SSHAPE and GSHAPE with OR, AND, XOR, etc.) * Sprite definition, displaying and animation commands on C128, even saving sprites to binaries * Sound commands (VOL, SOUND), later on at C=128 Music commands (ADSR and SID filter programming (ENVELOPE and FILTER), PLAY, TEMPO commands) * Signs of more structured programming: IF–THEN–ELSE, DO–LOOP–WHILE/UNTIL–EXIT, ON–GOSUB * Extended I/O commands for special features: JOY, function keys * Debugging commands: STOP, CONT, TRON, TROFF, RESUME * Extended handling of character screen: WINDOW * Support easier program development: RENUMBER, NEW, MONITOR, RREG * Spectravideo

CompuMate The CompuMate SV010 was a home computer peripheral manufactured by Spectravideo International for the Atari 2600 home video game console. It was released on 6 January 1983 at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. In ...

on the

Atari 2600 The Atari 2600, initially branded as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS) from its release until November 1982, is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977, it popularized microprocesso ...

MOS Technology 6507 The 6507 (typically "''sixty-five-oh-seven''" or "''six-five-oh-seven''") is an 8-bit microprocessor from MOS Technology, Inc. It is a version of their 40-pin 6502 packaged in a 28-pin DIP, making it cheaper to package and integrate in systems ...

CPU in 1983(Advertisement) CompuMate Basic Keyboard Enhancer
Page 7, Electronic Games Magazine (August 1983), Internet Archive

BASIC-68 and BASIC-69

Microsoft catalogs from the 1980s also showed the availability of BASIC-68 and BASIC-69 for the Motorola 6800 and

microprocessors respectively, running the FLEX operating systems, and also mention OEM versions for Perkin-Elmer, Ohio Nuclear, Pertec and Societe Occitane d'Electronique systems. It seems likely this is what is also the basis for the Microsoft/Epson BASIC in the Epson HX-20 portable computer, which has two Hitachi 6301 CPUs, which are essentially a "souped up" 6801. Most of the core features in BASIC-68 and BASIC-69 were copied directly from BASIC-80. BASIC-69 was notably also licensed to Tandy, where it formed the nucleus of

Color BASIC Color BASIC is the implementation of Microsoft BASIC that is included in the ROM of the Tandy/Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computers manufactured between 1980 and 1991. BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a high level language ...

on the TRS-80 Color Computer. Not to be confused with BASIC09, a very different BASIC created by Microware as the main language for its OS-9, the other OS available on the Color Computer (Microware also wrote version 2.0 of Extended Color BASIC when Microsoft refused to do it). Microsoft BASIC was also included in the Dragon 32 / 64 computers that were built in Wales and enjoyed some limited success in the UK home computer market in the early 1980s. Dragon computers were somewhat compatible with the Tandy TRS-80, as they were built on very similar hardware.

MSX

Microsoft produced a ROM-based MSX BASIC for use in MSX home computers, which used a Z80 processor. This version supported the graphics and sound systems of the MSX computers; some variants also had support for disk drives.

Modern descendants

No variety of Microsoft BASIC (

BASICA The IBM Personal Computer Basic, commonly shortened to IBM BASIC, is a programming language first released by IBM with the IBM Personal Computer, Model 5150 (IBM PC) in 1981. IBM released four different versions of the Microsoft BASIC interpre ...

, GW-BASIC, QuickBasic, QBasic) is currently distributed with

DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...

. However, versions that will still run on modern machines can be downloaded from various Internet sites or be found on old DOS disks. The latest incarnation of Microsoft BASIC is Visual Basic .NET, which incorporates some features from C++ and C# and can be used to develop Web forms, Windows forms,

console application A console application is a computer program designed to be used via a text-only computer interface, such as a text terminal, the command-line interface of some operating systems ( Unix, DOS, etc.) or the text-based interface included with mo ...

s and server-based applications. Most .NET code samples are presented in VB.NET as well as C#, and VB.NET continues to be favored by former Visual Basic

programmers A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

. In October 2008, Microsoft released

Small Basic Microsoft Small Basic is a programming language, interpreter and associated IDE. Microsoft's simplified variant of BASIC, it is designed to help students who have learnt visual programming languages such as Scratch learn text-based programming ...

. The language has only 14 keywords. Small Basic Version 1.0 (12 June 2011) was released with an updated Microsoft MSDN Web site that included a full teacher curriculum, a Getting Started Guide, and several e-books. Small Basic exists to help students as young as age eight learn the foundations of computer programming and then graduate to Visual Basic via the downloadable software,

Visual Studio Express Microsoft Visual Studio Express is a set of integrated development environments (IDEs) that Microsoft developed and released free of charge. They are function-limited version of the non-free Visual Studio and require mandatory registration. ...

, where they can continue to build on the foundation by learning Visual C#, VB.NET, and Visual C++.Graduating from Small Basic
/ref>

Variants and derivatives of Microsoft BASIC

* Altair BASIC (MITS Altair and other S-100 computers) * Amiga BASIC (Commodore Amiga family) * Applesoft BASIC (Apple II family) * Atari Microsoft BASIC I and II (Atari 8-bit family) *

Basic 1.0 BASIC 1.0 is the standard BASIC language for Thomson computers ( MO5, TO7, etc.), which is the reference for the entire range. This is an implementation of Microsoft BASIC (BASIC-69). It was used to introduce children from France to programming ...

(Thomson computer family) *

("BASIC Advanced") (PC DOS, on IBM PC) *

(TRS-80 Color Computer) *

and Disk Extended Color BASIC (TRS-80 Color Computer and Dragon 32/64) * Commodore BASIC (Commodore 8-bit family, incl C64) * FreeBASIC a free clone of the QuickBasic system * Galaksija BASIC (Galaksija home computer) * Gambas free implementation inspired by Visual Basic * GW-BASIC (BASICA for MS-DOS, on PC compatibles) * HP2640 HP2647 Programmable Terminal with AGL graphics extensions * IBM Cassette BASIC (Original IBM PC, built into ROM) *

Microsoft Level III BASIC Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washingt ...

(Tandy/Radio-Shack TRS-80) * MBASIC (CP/M, on 8080, 8085, and Z80-based computers) * MS BASIC for Macintosh (Mac OS on Apple Macintosh) * MSX BASIC (MSX standard home computers) *

N88-BASIC Microsoft BASIC is the foundation software product of the Microsoft company and evolved into a line of BASIC interpreters and compiler(s) adapted for many different microcomputers. It first appeared in 1975 as Altair BASIC, which was the first ve ...

(NEC PC8801/9801) * N82-BASIC ( NEC PC-8201/8201A, TRS-80 Model 100) * Oric Extended Basic ( Oric 8-bit family) * QBasic (PC DOS/MS-DOS on IBM PC and compatibles) * QuickBASIC (PC MS-DOS on IBM PC and compatibles) *

(MS Windows on IBM PC and compatibles) * T-BASIC (Toshiba Pasopia) and T-BASIC7 (Toshiba Pasopia 7) * TRS-80 Level II BASIC (Tandy/Radio-Shack

TRS-80 The TRS-80 Micro Computer System (TRS-80, later renamed the Model I to distinguish it from successors) is a desktop microcomputer launched in 1977 and sold by Tandy Corporation through their Radio Shack stores. The name is an abbreviation of ' ...

) * Visual Basic ( classic and .NET) (PC DOS/MS-DOS/MS Windows on IBM PC and compatibles) * Video Technology Basic (Laser 350/500/700) * WordBasic (pre- VBA) (MS Windows)

Notes

Sources differ in regard to the first NCR data entry terminal integrating support for the FAT file system. According to

Stephen Manes Stephen Manes (born January 8, 1949) is the author of the 2011 nonfiction book ''Where Snowflakes Dance and Swear: Inside the Land of Ballet.'' Its subject, the workings of a ballet company, marked a significant departure for an author best known f ...

and Paul Andrews, "Gates", development was for a NCR 8200 in late 1977, incorrectly classified as a floppy-based upgrade to the NCR 7200, which had been released in 1975-11 and was built around an Intel 8080 8-bit processor, but was cassette-based only. However, the NCR Century 8200 was a 16-bit minicomputer, onto which several data entry terminals could be hooked up.

even remembered a NCR 8500, a mainframe of the Criterion series, which can be ruled out as well. Other sources indicate that either the NCR 7200 itself or its successor were the actual target platform. The

NCR 7500 NCR Corporation, previously known as National Cash Register, is an American software, consulting and technology company providing several professional services and electronic products. It manufactures self-service kiosks, point-of-sale termin ...

series was released in 1978, based on a similar 8080 hardware, but now including NCR 7520 and 7530 models featuring 8-inch diskettes. NCR Basic +6, a precursor or adaptation of Microsoft

Standalone Disk BASIC-80 Microsoft BASIC is the foundation software product of the Microsoft company and evolved into a line of BASIC interpreters and compiler(s) adapted for many different microcomputers. It first appeared in 1975 as Altair BASIC, which was the first ve ...

was available for them at least since 1979. One source claims that a special NCR 7200 model variant with two 8-inch diskettes and Microsoft BASIC existed and was imported by NCR Sydney into Australia the least.

References

External links

Bill Gates' Personal Easter Eggs in 8 Bit BASIC
{{BASIC

BASIC programming language family Computer-related introductions in 1975 Programming languages created in 1975