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posted by
Fnord666
on Saturday May 23 2020, @10:46AM
from the statute-of-limitations-has-run-out dept.
from the statute-of-limitations-has-run-out dept.
Microsoft Has Now Open-Source Their BASIC Code From 1983 - Phoronix:
Microsoft GW-BASIC is now open-source following their prior open-sourcing of older MS-DOS versions. This original Microsoft BASIC version being open-sourced is from 1983 and is simply being open-sourced for historical purposes.
This Microsoft BASIC interpreter is written in Assembly, to no surprise considering the ivntage[sic] of the software. But Microsoft did push this code through a translator in order to make use of newer x86 ISA capabilities. As such, the code being open-sourced is that derived from their original source code.
More details on this Microsoft BASIC open-sourcing via their dev blog while the code is on GW-BASIC via GitHub.
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Microsoft Open-Sources their BASIC Code from 1983
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Fascinating is a word I use for the unexpected.
-- Spock, "The Squire of Gothos", stardate 2124.5
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Mojibake Tengu on Saturday May 23 2020, @03:49PM (1 child)
OEM.H itself reveals the true origin of the project in 8080/Z80 CP/M system. I remember 8bit Microsoft Basic in TRSDOS and NEWDOS2000 as well as on MSX standard platform. I still have a Sharp MZ-800 machine somewhere here.
We all (I mean, we all real programmers) had a complete (often self-commented) disassembly of ROMs of any relevant computer in those times, Basic included, because many routines were too interesting for call to be ignored. We knew our machines.
This uninteresting released 16bit x86 version of PC/XT GW-Basic came from the original 8bit version via some funky translator, which was most probably written in Pascal, just because TurboPascal3 itself was very portable for both 8bit and 16bit computers and best option for memory-conserving projects because of its P-code execution model.
And, last but not least shard of history: I do not believe Bill Gates wrote this code. He stole it.
Respect Authorities. Know your social status. Woke responsibly.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @06:13PM
I do not believe Bill Gates wrote this code. He stole it
You suspect that he can not write code. Interesting. That sounds made up to me. Can you prove it? I think MS can prove otherwise.
Remember at one point MS was a startup of 3-4 guys sitting in a room cranking some code. Bill was one of them.
I know! Perhaps he was getting access to a PDP11 just so he can make connections with people at IBM for a DEC system! Yeah thats it. /s
Of the people I know that can 'code'. Some have gone on to run large divisions of major corps. Others live in a van down by the river. Most live in a nice little suburban house with 2.3 kids. Life is not even or fair.
This code is probably 4th or 5th generational. At some point they took the ASM put it into a higher level lang then use some sort of transpiler to spit out ASM code to run into that platforms assembler. It could be that transpiler was written in pascal. They did have to target well over 20 different platforms with their basic at one point. Maybe they knew their platforms and business better than you trying to guess who did what 40 years ago. Using mainframe computers to build bios/roms for PC's was not uncommon. In fact Apple did it as well. Most of the big manufactures did. It was how they bootstrapped into the PC world. At this point the PC can do that all by itself. But at one point it was easier to use the tools on other systems to do it.
But you do not have to take my word for it. It is in the article what this code is.....
GW-BASIC was a BASIC interpreter derived from IBM’s Advanced BASIC/BASICA, which itself was a port of Microsoft BASIC.
Microsoft’s various BASIC implementations can trace their origins all the way back to Bill Gates & Paul Allen’s implementation of Microsoft’s first product – a BASIC interpreter for the Altair 8800.
During the late ’70s and 80s, Microsoft’s BASIC was ported to many OEM’s specific platform and hardware needs, and for several processors popular at that time, including the 8088, 6502, 6809, Z80, and others.
Basically (hehe) this is just a dump of the last intermediate build of GWBASIC for a particular platform (x86 PC-DOS2.0). Probably used to help debug issues if any popped up from their support lines.
MSBASIC was *the* BASIC most people used. It was the one everyone strove to build compatibility with. Even Apple and Commodore used it as a source reference. Remember MS in the early years was mostly not a direct to consumer company but an OEM to the ones that did.