In 1991, I was 7 years old and in grade 3. At time, we were introduced and allowed to step in newly constructed school computer lab. I still remember those big CRT monitors each with a big
blinking icon. Teachers were using floppy disks to boot our computers and allowing us to play graphic fewer games.
We were also introduced to GW-BASIC. A language that we use to create small programs like addition, deletion, etc.
At that time, everyone was 'writing his own program'. We save our program on floppy disks (1.440 MB).
In 2020, we are in the era of open-source. I had written a comprehensive article with the title "What happened and what will happen to Open Source" on a
community devto.
Link: https://dev.to/manishfoodtechs/what-happened-and-what-will-happen-to-open-source-must-read-2l3ln
If you really want to have a small introduction about GW BASIC have a look to this article:
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/microsoft-open-sources-gw-basic/
May 21, 2020, Microsoft opened the source code for the GW-BASIC programming language interpreter. The code is written in assembler (explanation in the FAQ from Microsoft: this code is not written in C, it is 100% assembler) for Intel 8088 processors. The release date for Microsoft sources is February 10, 1983. Currently, GW-BASIC source code posted on GitHub under the MIT license.
In fact, Microsoft published the GW-BASIC code for historical and educational purposes only. Thus, the company supplemented the source code of the MS-DOS 1.25 and 2.0 operating system, open to everyone in 2018. Also, Microsoft will not accept pull requests in the main repository with this code.
On GitHub, the GW-BASIC source code files are uploaded with the publication date “38 years ago”, though the same applies to the LICENSE (Initial commit 38 years ago) and the .gitignore file (there is also the Initial commit 38 years ago), which somehow look strange . As if to create such a historic atmosphere, a PC with a date from 1983 was used. But the MIT License appeared only in 1988.
In addition, in the GWMAIN.ASM fileYou can find the lines: Earlier on May 14, 2020, Microsoft CEO Brad Smith stated that the corporation allowed itself false statements regarding open source and Linux. Recently, however, Microsoft's approach has changed, and many projects come out with open source code, including the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).
COPYRIGHT 1975 BY BILL GATES AND PAUL ALLEN
ORIGINALLY WRITTEN ON THE PDP-10 FROM
FEBRUARY 9 TO APRIL 9 1975
BILL GATES WROTE A LOT OF STUFF.
PAUL ALLEN WROTE A LOT OF OTHER STUFF AND FAST CODE.
MONTE DAVIDOFF WROTE THE MATH PACKAGE (F4I.MAC).
The original source code of Microsoft GW-BASIC from 1983
Microsoft GW-BASIC Interpreter Source Code
This repo contains the original source-code for Microsoft's GW-BASIC interpreter, as of 1983.
Announcement blog
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/microsoft-open-sources-gw-basic/
Information
This repo:
- Is being released for historical reference/interest purposes, and reflects the state of the GW-BASIC interpreter source code as it was in 1983
- Will not be modified - please do not submit PR's or request changes
- Contains no build scripts, makefiles, or tools required to generate executable binaries, nor does it contain any pre-built binaries / executables
License
All files within this repo are released under the MIT (OSI) License as per the LICENSE file stored in the root of this repo.
Contributing
The source files in this repo are for historical reference and will remain read-only and unmodified in their original state. Please do not send Pull Requests suggesting any modifications to the source files.
Further contribution guidance can be found in the Contributor's Guide stored…
