BASIC
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The features of BASIC highlighted by 10 PRINT and which are fairly specific to the Commodore 64 version are seen in the RND command, discussed in the Randomness chapter, and in the PETSCII character set that CHR$ refers to, discussed in the Commodore 64 chapter. | The features of BASIC highlighted by 10 PRINT and which are fairly specific to the Commodore 64 version are seen in the RND command, discussed in the Randomness chapter, and in the PETSCII character set that CHR$ refers to, discussed in the Commodore 64 chapter. | ||
| − | Before moving on to the way Commodore 64 BASIC programs circulated, it's worth considering the creators of Commodore 64 BASIC. Bill Gates's career trajectory is, of course, well-known. It is indeed the case that one of the programmers of Commodore 64 BASIC became the richest person in the world. Paul Allen is not far behind in wealth; he left full-time work at Microsoft in 1982. Gates are Allen are notable philanthropists today. The other coder who contributed to the original Altair BASIC, Monte Davidoff, did not strike it nearly as rich but, according to an interview, was still active as a programmer in 2001. Davidoff was then running Linux and preferred to program in Python (Orlowski). | + | Before moving on to the way Commodore 64 BASIC programs circulated, it's worth considering the creators of Commodore 64 BASIC. Bill Gates's career trajectory is, of course, well-known. It is indeed the case that one of the programmers of Commodore 64 BASIC became the richest person in the world. Paul Allen is not far behind in wealth; he left full-time work at Microsoft in 1982. Gates and Allen are notable philanthropists today. The other coder who contributed to the original Altair BASIC, Monte Davidoff, did not strike it nearly as rich but, according to an interview, was still active as a programmer in 2001, running Linux, and preferring to program in Python (Orlowski). |
| − | The programmer of Microsoft's 6502 BASIC, Richard Weiland, was a grade-school classmate of Gates and Allen who joined Microsoft when the company was based in Albuquerque. He worked for Microsoft until 1988 and devoted much of his time and money from then until his death in 2006 to philanthropy. He supported the Pride Foundation (with the largest-ever donation to LBGT rights), Stanford University (with the largest donation that university had ever received) and also gave to the Audubon Society and the Nature Conservancy (Heim). Remembering the generosity of the people behind Microsoft BASIC certainly tempers the sharp dichotomy between profit-driven corporations and people-powered, community-focused free software that erupted decades earlier, in the dawning days of home computing. | + | The programmer of Microsoft's 6502 BASIC, Richard Weiland, a grade-school classmate of Gates and Allen, joined Microsoft when the company was based in Albuquerque. He worked for Microsoft until 1988 and devoted much of his time and money from then until his death in 2006 to philanthropy. He supported the Pride Foundation (with the largest-ever donation to LBGT rights), Stanford University (with the largest donation that university had ever received), and gave to the Audubon Society and the Nature Conservancy (Heim). Remembering the generosity of the people behind Microsoft BASIC helps temper the sharp dichotomy between profit-driven corporations and people-powered, community-focused, free software that erupted decades earlier, in the dawning days of home computing. |
== Circulating Programs in Print == | == Circulating Programs in Print == | ||
