[HN Gopher] Celebrate 50 years of Microsoft with the company's o...
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Celebrate 50 years of Microsoft with the company's original source
code
Author : EvgeniyZh
Score : 34 points
Date : 2025-04-03 21:49 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.gatesnotes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.gatesnotes.com)
| breadwinner wrote:
| 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://paulallen.com/Futurist/Microsoft.aspx
| zabzonk wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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-c.
| ..
| zabzonk wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| dullcrisp wrote:
| Seems that Ginger got the last laugh though.
| shmerl wrote:
| Don't forget the infamous Open Letter to Hobbyists that
| followed:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists
| esafak wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > " _...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
|
| " _...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
| santiagobasulto wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 and
| plenty of valuable intellectual property was originally
| created elsewhere.
| jer0me wrote:
| The source code is linked at the end (warning: it's a 100 MB
| PDF).
|
| https://images.gatesnotes.com/12514eb8-7b51-008e-41a9-512542...
| mysterydip wrote:
| Ironic for something designed to take up only 4KB on its target
| machine :)
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| Thank you for the warning. I once used up my Internet package's
| entire monthly quota by following a similar link on Hacker
| News.
| starik36 wrote:
| The screenshot of the source code at the end of the article is a
| ton of printed code.
|
| How was it then entered into the Altair? Did someone have to
| retype it? Or was there media that predated floppies that was
| used?
| richardwhiuk wrote:
| Paul Allen entered it in front of the customer for the first
| run
|
| https://paulallen.com/Futurist/Microsoft.aspx
|
| I expect it was distributed on tape as well.
| ttkari wrote:
| It was stored on a punched paper tape.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_BASIC#Origin_and_develo...
| jwnin wrote:
| Some luck, and willingness to take risks paid off in ways that
| could never be anticipated. Not sure I'll see something like the
| pc era in my lifetime. Perhaps mobile phones, or the Internet.
| wrobelda wrote:
| I mean... The AI?
| billforsternz wrote:
| There's something rather cringeworthy about the heavy and painful
| animations etc. on this website trying to create a 1970s computer
| technology vibe but instead just giving me a headache. I'd much
| prefer the same information, and the same vibe, with some much
| less fancy, lightweight easy to read web tech that actually
| simulates an authentic 1970s experience (I remember that era
| well! I'm an 8080 programmer myself from way way back).
| stkai wrote:
| The source code is such a fun read (for the comments). I found
| some source code for GW-BASIC, and here are two of my favorites:
| ;WE COULD NOT FIT THE NUMBER INTO THE BUFFER DESPITE OUR VALIENT
| ;EFFORTS WE MUST POP ALL THE CHARACTERS BACK OFF THE STACK AND
| ;POP OFF THE BEGINNING BUFFER PRINT LOCATION AND INPUT A "%" SIGN
| THERE ;CONSTANTS FOR THE RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR
| FOLLOW ;DO NOT CHANGE THESE WITHOUT CONSULTING KNUTH VOL 2
| ;CHAPTER 3 FIRST
|
| Edit: GW-BASIC, not QBASIC (https://github.com/microsoft/GW-
| BASIC)
| santiagobasulto wrote:
| Microsoft (and maybe even Bill Gates personally) generated a
| strong "dislike" sentiment to the hacker community. But we can't
| deny that he and Paul Allen were pure breed hackers and helped a
| lot the development of technology. Of course, we all prefer OSS
| and we'd pick Linus (or insert OSS dev name here) 100 times over
| one of the "evil capitalists"/s, but nevertheless they have to be
| recognized.
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(page generated 2025-04-03 23:00 UTC)