Yep, and they couldn't copy the BASIC without lawsuits or being licensed,
which would have cost them more (in either repsect) making their machines
cost more, hence they left that out and included an on-disk BASIC
interpreter, known as GW-BASIC. I'm not even sure if MS was responsible for
the GW version either.
Been a long time since I muddled with most of the old BASICs, or for that
fact Pascal, COBOL, etc. No time for programming with all the hardware work
anymore.
-> -----Original Message-----
-> From: owner-classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org
-> [mailto:owner-classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Sellam Ismail
-> Sent: Monday, October 01, 2001 1:25 PM
-> To: classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org
-> Subject: RE: IBM ROM BASIC or lack thereof
->
->
-> On Sun, 30 Sep 2001, Russ Blakeman wrote:
->
-> > If memory serves the one real thing that cloners couldn't
-> duplicate, maybe
-> > due to copyright, was the ROM BASIC but that they'd duplicated
-> everything
-> > else including the BIOS or a very good part of it. That pretty
-> much led to
-> > IBM losing a lot in the PC market.
->
-> It should be pointed out that MS owned the copyright to BASIC, which is
-> probably why it wasn't included on clones. They would have had to obtain
-> a license from MS.
->
-> > Now why they kept the BASIC on ROM even into the PS/2 line is beyond
-> > me. It served no real purpose that late in life when most people had
-> > moved on to C++ and Pascal and it was rare to find someone that used
-> > BASIC or BASICA - especially since the cassette port was gone as of
-> > the XT 5160.
->
-> Too bad it isn't still there. It was a simple way for people (especially
-> kids) to be introduced to programming.
->
-> Sellam Ismail Vintage
-> Computer Festival
-> -----------------------------------------------------------------
-> -------------
-> International Man of Intrigue and Danger
http://www.vintage.org
Received on Mon Oct 01 2001 - 15:02:52 BST