07-24-2024, 09:31 AM
From ZDNet:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolog...1ccb&ei=79
In their day though, BASIC and DTSS democratized access to computing power. It allowed developers to run programs concurrently on a central machine -- a radical concept at the time. ...
Two young men, Paul Allen, and Bill Gates, proposed to the maker of the first PC, Ed Roberts' Altair 8800, that they port BASIC to his computer. He agreed, and shortly thereafter, they founded Micro-Soft. You know it better as Microsoft. ...
Then, when IBM came out with its first PC, Gates and Allen were ready to take advantage of this new platform. As IBM President of Entry Systems, Don Estridge, said, "Microsoft BASIC had hundreds of thousands of users around the world. How are you going to argue with that?" ...
BASIC would still have its fans. Long before Microsoft developers dreamed of .NET or C#, Microsoft kept producing other popular BASIC variants, such as QBasic, GW-BASIC, and Visual Basic. A few non-Microsoft BASIC versions, such as QuickBASIC, also kept chugging along. ...
Still, BASIC isn't dead. Microsoft open-sourced GW-BASIC in 2020. Other BASIC variants are still with us as well, such as the Windows-specific Small Visual Basic; and the open-source SmallBASIC and QB Phoenix Edition. In fact, hidden inside Microsoft Office, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) remains the Office worker's power tool set. ...
But, never forget that BASIC helped early users engage with computers in a fundamentally new way. The story of BASIC is not just about a programming language. It's about making technology accessible and comprehensible, transforming passive users into active creators. You may never write a line of BASIC, or you may hate the language, but we all live with its influence to this day.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolog...1ccb&ei=79
In their day though, BASIC and DTSS democratized access to computing power. It allowed developers to run programs concurrently on a central machine -- a radical concept at the time. ...
Two young men, Paul Allen, and Bill Gates, proposed to the maker of the first PC, Ed Roberts' Altair 8800, that they port BASIC to his computer. He agreed, and shortly thereafter, they founded Micro-Soft. You know it better as Microsoft. ...
Then, when IBM came out with its first PC, Gates and Allen were ready to take advantage of this new platform. As IBM President of Entry Systems, Don Estridge, said, "Microsoft BASIC had hundreds of thousands of users around the world. How are you going to argue with that?" ...
BASIC would still have its fans. Long before Microsoft developers dreamed of .NET or C#, Microsoft kept producing other popular BASIC variants, such as QBasic, GW-BASIC, and Visual Basic. A few non-Microsoft BASIC versions, such as QuickBASIC, also kept chugging along. ...
Still, BASIC isn't dead. Microsoft open-sourced GW-BASIC in 2020. Other BASIC variants are still with us as well, such as the Windows-specific Small Visual Basic; and the open-source SmallBASIC and QB Phoenix Edition. In fact, hidden inside Microsoft Office, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) remains the Office worker's power tool set. ...
But, never forget that BASIC helped early users engage with computers in a fundamentally new way. The story of BASIC is not just about a programming language. It's about making technology accessible and comprehensible, transforming passive users into active creators. You may never write a line of BASIC, or you may hate the language, but we all live with its influence to this day.