Altair BASIC

Altair BASIC is a version of the BASIC programming language that was developed by Microsoft co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen for the Altair 8800 microcomputer, which was designed by Ed Roberts and manufactured by MITS. The language was first demonstrated at the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto, California, and it played a significant role in the development of the personal computer industry, influencing companies like Apple Inc. and Commodore International. Bill Gates and Paul Allen formed Microsoft to develop and sell Altair BASIC, which was initially distributed by MITS and later by Microsoft itself, with the help of IBM and other industry partners.

Introduction

The introduction of Altair BASIC marked a significant milestone in the development of personal computers, as it provided a user-friendly and accessible programming language for the Altair 8800 and other early microcomputers, such as the Apple I and the Commodore PET. The language was designed to be compatible with the BASIC programming language, which was developed at Dartmouth College by John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz, and it included features like integer arithmetic and string manipulation, similar to those found in COBOL and FORTRAN. Altair BASIC was also influenced by other programming languages, such as Pascal and C, which were developed by Niklaus Wirth and Dennis Ritchie at ETH Zurich and Bell Labs, respectively.

History

The development of Altair BASIC began in 1975, when Bill Gates and Paul Allen read an article about the Altair 8800 in Popular Electronics, a magazine published by Ziff Davis. The two programmers contacted Ed Roberts, the designer of the Altair 8800, and offered to create a version of BASIC for the computer, which would be compatible with the Intel 8080 microprocessor and the CP/M operating system. Bill Gates and Paul Allen worked tirelessly to develop the language, using a PDP-10 minicomputer at Harvard University and a Teletype Model 33 terminal, and they eventually demonstrated Altair BASIC at the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto, California, where it was met with enthusiasm by Steve Wozniak and other members of the club.

Features

Altair BASIC included a number of features that made it an attractive programming language for early microcomputer users, such as variables, loops, and conditional statements, similar to those found in BASIC and Pascal. The language also included a debugger and a compiler, which allowed users to test and optimize their programs, using techniques developed by Donald Knuth and Edsger W. Dijkstra. Altair BASIC was also compatible with a number of peripherals, including printers and tape drives, which were manufactured by companies like Centronics and Teac, and it included a number of mathematical functions, such as sine and cosine, which were developed by Isaac Newton and Leonhard Euler.

Development

The development of Altair BASIC was a significant challenge for Bill Gates and Paul Allen, as they had to create a programming language that would run on a computer with limited memory and processing power, using techniques developed by Alan Turing and John von Neumann. The two programmers used a cross-compiler to develop the language, which allowed them to test and debug their code on a PDP-10 minicomputer before transferring it to the Altair 8800, and they worked closely with Ed Roberts and other members of the MITS team to ensure that the language was compatible with the computer's hardware and software, including the CP/M operating system and the Intel 8080 microprocessor.

Impact

The impact of Altair BASIC on the development of the personal computer industry was significant, as it provided a user-friendly and accessible programming language for early microcomputer users, such as Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who went on to found Apple Inc. and develop the Apple II. Altair BASIC also influenced the development of other programming languages, such as GW-BASIC and QuickBASIC, which were developed by Microsoft and used by programmers like Charles Petzold and Raymond Chen. The language also played a significant role in the development of the software industry, as it helped to establish Microsoft as a major player in the market, alongside companies like IBM and Oracle Corporation, and it paved the way for the development of other programming languages, such as C++ and Java, which were developed by Bjarne Stroustrup and James Gosling at Bell Labs and Sun Microsystems, respectively. Category:Programming languages