GW-BASIC source-code is finally available

I’m sure some of you will be relieved to hear that the repo for GW-BASIC was finally been made public today on GitHub.

Microsoft Open-Sources GW-BASIC

Posted for those who are inclined to enjoy a stroll down memory lane.

Myself, I didn’t buy my first computer until 1987.

Initial commit 38 years ago…

100% assembly language.

:expressionless:

Ha, keep in mind, there’s always an intention behind this: “Look the open-source-ishness of Microsoft!” while they suck all your personal and behavioural data and sell it for ads to Adobe and Google, as we see in Microsoft Teams (SZ article)

But have I told, how i bought a 300,- EUR ticket to my own history last winter? My first 8088 IBM Schneider Euro-PC IBM compatible with MS-DOS 3.3, MS-Works 1.01 and… rolling drums … GW-BASIC !




(soon replaced by Borland Turbo-BASIC and the later Power-BASIC, RIP Robert “Bob” Zale)

[quote=489631:@Ivan Tellez]Initial commit 38 years ago…

100% assembly language.

:|[/quote]
Actually, I believe the original release ran on a Turing Machine.

GWBasic, my first Basic on PC, followed up much later by PowerBasic which i still have and occasionally use before I discovered RealBasic in 2010.

QB45…ah simpler times.

On Pc (IBM) I made a cross-assembler for CPU 6502, 6809, Z80 and 8088 using GWBasic, MS Quickbasic 2 and MS Quickbasic 4, back in the 80’s. My cross assembler and later also simulator was used from 1987 up till 1996. For Windows I used Vb4, 5,6 till 2004. Did several try’s to get the same performance and quality with the .NET replacements of Vb6, but faced a lot of non performance and bugs those days since .NET 1.0 and 1.1 was rubbish. Believe it took Microsoft more than 10 years to get this platform to an acceptable level, and that it was their marketing power, money and stamina that made this long-term project successful in the end.
The fact that legacy code gets available now is just childhood sentiment. What would one do with it else than just loving it ?

For years, I used the pseudonym Sparklepause on a few BBS. Came from a subroutine name in a snake game that came with Quickbasic.

I used QB for my first contract years ago. It had all the elegance of a Terminal app.

My first BASIC was on the VAX minicomputer at my Dad’s work which we accessed from home through a Texas Instruments Portable terminal.

Started out with Basic-11 on the DEC PDP-11… Before we moved to the VAX… in college.

The first application was to predict the winners at greyhound races back in Ireland. We later discovered that the Prof was a pretty serious gambler.