Bill Gates Publishes Original 1975 Altair BASIC Interpreter Source Code
Eridanus2 · hn · 2026-09-03
Bill Gates has released the full original source code PDF of Microsoft's first product: the 1975 BASIC interpreter written for the Altair 8800. The document marks the founding artifact of Microsoft and of the personal computer software industry, and the HN thread dives into how early interpreters were hand-crafted.
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