Microsoft produces 6502 Basic, which is now an open source: a dream will come true to nostalgia

Almost 50 years after your debut, Microsoft has released 6502 Basic, which is now an open sourceThe famous software field is first available completely and officially through the GitHub repository, so both programmers and enthusiastic and nostalgic can study it or check it.

6502 Basic launch as software Open source code This happens after fragments of this or unofficial copies have been in circulation for decades. Now Redmond’s fully provides one of their first (and most successful) products that have installed the bases to become today’s megacorporation.

Formal name 6502 Basic Microsoft Basic version 1.1 for microprocessor 6502And its creation dates from 1976. That is, a year after Bill Gates and Paul Allen launched the main translator for the Intel 8080 microprocessor, the first Microsoft product as a company.

The development of 6502 BASIC was conceived as Microsoft Basic Port for commands with 6502 CPU MOS technologies. This component has become one of the most used in home computers and prefixes of video games that debuted from the second half of the seventies and the eighties.

Commodore was the first to licensed 6502 Basic in 1977 in an agreement in the amount of $ 25,000. This allowed Microsoft to develop cult devices such as Pet Commodore, Commodore Vic-20 and Commodore 64. Similarly, the port served as the basis for Applesoft BasicWhich was used as the main interpreter in Apple II as a replacement for the integer basic Steve of Wozniak.

6502 BASIC is now available in the form of open source software

Using the processor Mos Technology 6502 In some of the most iconic devices of the seventies and eighties, among which we can also turn on Atari 2600, 800xl Atari and Nes, it was important to maintain interest in 6502 Basic Alive. And now, when Microsoft has released it as open source software, its implementation in projects for reviving equipment of past years will be much easier.

Thanks to the technology FPGAMore and more initiatives that are offered to launch the modernized versions of old devices. The use of a programmable logical matrix in the field allows you to reproduce the operation of the source equipment using modern hardware, without losing retrofitability with accessories and elements such as control elements or cartridges. Something, which is impossible with a simple software emulator.

Thus, it is logical to think that the total availability (and open source code) of 6502 basic will be very useful to give a new life to projects Retro informaticsLet us keep in mind the field that this basic interpreter developed by Microsoft not only has the full implementation of the language under consideration, but also supports arithmetic floating commas, mathematical functions and operators, input and withdrawal operations and much more.

Those who are interested in an attempt by 6502 BASIC can learn more through the repository that Microsoft published in GitHub.