Ignorance is bliss [S. Worthen

Bog and leg.

Tell that to the commodore vic20 I used to write BASIC programs on...

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MS BASIC predates the VIC-20 I'm afraid (but they still didn't invent it).

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I am pretty sure Admiral Hooper never worked for Microsoft. Not to mention that whole pesky chronology thing!

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Oh, details, details.

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wait -- is it Hopper or Hooper? I think it might be Hopper.

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Rear-Admiral Grace Murray Hopper it is.

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*headdesk*

My mom studied FORTRAN and COBOL in the 70s, as I recall, and I programmed in BASIC in the early 80s.

You'd think that people would do some basic fact-checking. Or that editors might. Good grief.

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Or perhaps there was time travel involved...?

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I programmed in BASIC in the early 80s.

Microsoft wrote their basic in 1975 (but that was still eleven years after the invention of the language).

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I'm trying to remember... I don't think I was using the MS version, but I honestly don't recall for sure (heck, I probably didn't know then or care, not at age 12 or so).

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Being charitable could they mean developed in the sense of "worked on" rather than invented? MS did develop their own versions of all four.

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I shall quote the passage in question. You decide what they mean and if there are any shades of grey about it.

"Microsoft was established by Bill Gates in the 1970s. It developed computer languages such as BASIC, FORTRAN, COBOL, and Pascal, and in 1980 entered into an agreement with IBM to supply software for IBM's first personal computer, as well as developing the disk operating system (DOS)."

The passage then continues to discuss the '80s.

The shadiest bit of grey I can see is if by "developed" the authors did indeed mean "worked on", but the internal chronology of the narrative does rather imply it had happened by 1980. So had they written their own versions of all of them by then?

(Sorry for all the edits - I hope it's typo-free now.)

Edited Date: 2009-03-22 10:37 pm (UTC)

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Microsoft Basic was before MSDOS. I don't know about the others I'm afraid but I think it's actually pretty unlikely -- make that very unlikely.

Ah... I think I can see what's happened here, I think he or she means develop in the sense of "software developer" (for example "Richard developed the database for us" -- meaning I wrote the particular database used here rather than inventing the concept) but it's misleading in the extreme. Also they developed (in the sense of programmed) a particular disk operating system others were previously in use, QDOS for example (which MSDOS was partly based on). The disk operating system they developed was MSDOS/PCDOS not just DOS (although that shortening became common).

I think it's just very sloppy writing rather than an erroneous belief that Microsoft invented BASIC, FORTRAN, COBOL and Pascal and the disk operating system. However, I would not rely on a book which writes so sloppily as to be misleading.

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So you think it likely (or know for certain) that Microsoft did use all these languages as part of its development process by 1980? (It's entirely plausible - I'm just wondering how certain you are of it.)

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So you think it likely (or know for certain) that Microsoft did use all these languages as part of its development process by 1980?

No -- I said I thought that was very unlikely -- my guess is they only had BASIC by then. They were a tiny company until the whole QDOS ->PCDOS/MSDOS thing. I think the implied time ordering is merely sloppy writing. I may be wrong and the author genuinely believes Microsoft invented these programming languages and the disk operating system.

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Ah, right, sorry - sloppy reading of my own. It could be. It's a textbook and therefore ambitious in scope. I wouldn't count on the authors being expert in more than a handful of the topics they're covering. (Yes, it's co-written.)

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I thought early Microsoft was basically a bunch of software geeks futzing around? In which case it could be possible they'd develop in all of those languages.

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That's certainly true but I don't think anyone would put that in as a claim about a company (the languages they developed in rather than the languages they developed their own versions of) because it's not terribly impressive. Also those do happen to be four languages MS had their own versions of in olden times.

Well, whatever the truth the passage is so shonkily written we can't actually tell what it means.

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If they add an in after developed, it would work. I don't think they developed _the_ DOS, either. MS-DOS was the one bundled with IBM, but it wasn't the only flavor of DOS on the block. I remember the first IBM we had (after we got rid of the c64, which was a much more hacker-friendly machine) had QDOS on it, or maybe GDOS? It was a version of DOS developed in-house by AT&T.

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A dropped word in there might clean up a whole heck of a lot. "Developed for" or maybe "developed in". Possibly even "developed with" although probably not.

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Wow. The only one they're even in the ballpark on is BASIC. (And I'd say "exploited" more than "invented.")

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No no no! Everyone knows that Microsoft had nothing to do with Kobol

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And very little, for that matter, to do with kobolds.

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Oooh which game is that icon?

"Cobalt's metal, hard and shining;
COBOL's wordy and confining.
Kobolds topple when you strike them;
Don't feel bad, it's hard to like them."

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Hee.

It's from zAngband, the last Rogue-like I played at any length. I was so thrilled to kill Grendel in game that I commemorated it with a screen cap.

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Ah... I remember now, in fact I've asked you about it before I'm sure. [My memory is shocking.]

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I should make myself more icons. Then you'll stand a greater chance of asking me about a new one in the future. :)

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*laugh* It would be very kind of you to help me out like that. Also, if everyone could change their name every few weeks then I would be excused forgetting them.

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I think it's quite bad enough that we all have at least three names around here: first, last, username. One always seems like it ought to be quite enough to have to remember, per person. And yet - it isn't.

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Thrilled, that is, because of the medieval connection, not because he was that insanely hard.

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Great discussion here! Love it.

As I recall, Gates and another fellow helped write a version of BASIC to run on CPM based hobby/kit computers in the 70's. I suppose it's possible he and his accomplice were also working on versions of PASCAL, COBAL and FORTRAN for the same audience afterwards. They would have made good additions to their thin catalog.

I do recall versions of these languages being offered for CPM machines, but I don't remember if it was Microsoft doing the offering. There were a lot of folks scrambling to do the same back then.

But after MS got the IBM deal for their DOS, they had the cash to hire on many more developers than anyone else and the rest is marketing history.

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I thought Gates bought his version of BASIC for 40k? That's the story I always hear in the "Gates isn't even a real haxxor and Micro$oft sux" bitch sessions amongst my geekier brethren.

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I don't think anyone had a BASIC for the Intel 8080 chips back then. Reading up on Wikipedia, Altair BASIC was pretty much the only thing being offered for the kit machines being sold.

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With Google as my only source I'm hesitant to say but it seems like MS did put out their own versions of all those languages in the late 70s or early 80s (here is an example http://www.emsps.com/oldtools/msfor.htm#for1 )

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The page you linked to doesn't date anything back further than 1981. Pascal in 1981, COBOL 1.0 in 1982. You're sure you can get it back to the late '70s for anything other than BASIC?

(Obviously, for anything released in the early '80s, there's a very high chance it was being developed, well, before it was released - but by how many years?)

Edited Date: 2009-03-23 07:56 am (UTC)

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Your right about that site. It just looked like the most reliable source (in that it names particular products and dates them it could still easily be inaccurate) I could come across by casual searching. Looking again this biography of Gary Kildall (creator of the CP/M OS http://www.atarimuseum.com/articles/kildall.html ) seems to agree that MS FORTRAN existed by 1978 (but no mention of COBOL etc. except as developed by others like UCSD). This blogger ( http://vistasmalltalk.wordpress.com/2006/07/18/early-microsoft/ ) mentions having MS Fortran in 1978 . If your really interested I can ask my friends who are experts on microcomputer history.

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S. Worthen | Weblog

Ignorance is bliss

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