Hi Rich. As an aside, are there any updates as to the fate of the LCM collection? I'd heard sordid rumors about its dispersal but would appreciate definitive word from a reliable source (i.e. yourself) to the extent you're able to discuss it.
Thanks. Sellam On Tue, Oct 18, 2022 at 2:43 PM Rich Alderson via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2022 23:08:23 -0500 > > From: Steve Lewis via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> > > > I recall the story by Paul Allen - they had developed a BASIC, but didn't > > have a boot loader to load it, and Paul wrote one while on the airplane > to > > MOS. > > MITS, not MOS. > > Messrs. Allen, Gates, and Davidoff wrote their BASIC for the Altair 8800 > using > a chip emulator created by Allen using the Unimplemented User Operation > (UUO) > facility of the PDP-10. He originally emulated the 8008, but updated it > when > the 8080 came out. > > He recreated the boot code for us to use on our restored 8800 at LCM+L, so > that > he could demonstrate the Altair BASIC for Leslie Stahl when she > interviewed him > for "60 Minutes" (when his memoir "Idea Man" was first published). He > spent > several weeks at the nascent museum debugging the BASIC interpreter prior > to > her visit--we did not have the final code he demo'd at MITS, but backups > of the > development sources, so he had to fix some known bugs. > > Rich >
