BASIC

== Commodore BASIC==

== Commodore BASIC==

The Commodore 64 BASIC on which 10 PRINT runs is a Microsoft product and a descendant of Altair BASIC, although the first step for achieving this BASIC was creating a version for the Commodore 64's chip, the 6502. (The Altair used the Intel 8080, which had a different instruction set.) The task of developing a 6502 version of Microsoft BASIC was undertaken in 1976 and fell mainly to Richard Weiland. When a user types "A" in response to the startup question "MEMORY SIZE?", the version of Microsoft 6502 BASIC that was licensed to Ohio Scientific replies "WRITTEN BY RICHARD W. WEILAND," while version 1.1 for the KIM declares "WRITTEN BY WEILAND & GATES." But the first version of Microsoft's 6502 BASIC that made its way into the ROM of a shipping system, in 1977, was a version for Commodore -- not for the Commodore 64, but for the company's first computer, the Personal Electronic Transactor or PET.

The Commodore 64 BASIC on which 10 PRINT runs is a Microsoft product and a descendant of Altair BASIC, although the first step for achieving this BASIC was creating a version for the Commodore 64's chip, the 6502. (The Altair used the Intel 8080, which had a different instruction set.) The task of developing a 6502 version of Microsoft BASIC was undertaken in 1976 and fell mainly to Richard Weiland. When a user types "A" in response to the startup question "MEMORY SIZE?", the version of Microsoft 6502 BASIC that was licensed to Ohio Scientific replies "WRITTEN BY RICHARD W. WEILAND," while version 1.1 for the KIM declares "WRITTEN BY WEILAND & GATES." But the first version of Microsoft's 6502 BASIC that made its way into the ROM of a shipping system, in 1977, was a version for Commodore -- not for the Commodore 64, but for the company's first computer, the Personal Electronic Transactor or PET.