Microsoft BASIC began in 1975 as the company's very first product: a BASIC interpreter for the Intel 8080, written by Bill Gates and Paul Allen for the Altair 8800. That codebase was soon adapted to run on other 8-bit CPUs, including the MOS 6502, Motorola 6800, and 6809. You can learn more about this time and hear directly from Bill Gates on the Microsoft Learn Website's History of Microsoft video series or by visiting Bill Gates' blog.

The 6502 port was completed in 1976 by Bill Gates and Ric Weiland. In 1977, Commodore licensed it for a flat fee of $25,000, a deal that placed Microsoft BASIC at the heart of Commodore's PET computers and, later, the VIC-20 and Commodore 64. That decision put Microsoft's BASIC at the heart of Commodore's machines and helped millions of new programmers learn by typing:

10 PRINT "HELLO"
20 GOTO 10
This is BASIC M6502 8K VER 1.1, the 6502 BASIC lineage that powered an era of home computing and formed the foundation of Commodore BASIC in the PET, VIC-20, and the legendary Commodore 64. This very source tree also contains adaptations for the Apple II ("Applesoft BASIC"), built from the same core BASIC source. The original headers still read, "BASIC M6502 8K VER 1.1 BY MICRO-SOFT"—a time capsule from 1978.

The version we are releasing here—labeled "1.1"—contains fixes to the garbage collector identified by Commodore and jointly implemented in 1978 by Commodore engineer John Feagans and Bill Gates, when Feagans traveled to Microsoft's Bellevue offices. This is the version that shipped as the PET's "BASIC V2." It even contains a playful Bill Gates Easter egg, hidden in the labels STORDO and STORD0, which Gates himself confirmed in 2010.

https://opensource.microsoft.com/blog/2025/09/03/microsoft-open-source-historic-6502-basic

Ah-ha!  By looking at https://telarity.com/~dan/cbm/languages.html , I also see MetaBASIC-128 and VDC BASIC, both for the C128.

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group - http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network - http://www.portcommodore.com/sccan

Quote from: RobertB on January 21, 2026, 06:15 PM

Quote from: Hydrophilic on January 17, 2026, 01:51 PM

• BASIC 7.80 (graphics from BASIC now operate on 80-column)

On a side note, the January 2026 of the new Compute!'s Gazette magazine has a review and comparison of several BASIC enhancements for the C64.

Hmm, how many were there for the C128? 

Other than BASIC 8, I can't think of any.

Quote from: Hydrophilic on January 17, 2026, 01:51 PMI'm glad to see Commodore 128 Alive! again.  On a related note, I just got my website up and running again.  No forums, but some things the C128'er might find interesting are:

• BASIC Encyclopedia
• BASIC 7.80 (graphics from BASIC now operate on 80-column)
• SAM 128 (speech synthesizer)

BASIC 7.80 looks interesting.  A couple of notes:

• "Multi-color bitmap modes. The VDC can not display 4 colors in a single cell. You might be able to emulate this with interlace mode."

  I recall BASIC 8 used dithering to simulate multi-color.  Might be a possibility here, although likely complicated to implement.  

• "Split-screen modes.  The VDC does not have a raster interrupt.  Should be possible with synchronized CIA interrupt."

   The problem with doing that is CIA timers are run by the ~1 MHz I/O clock, which cannot be evenly divided  to match either of the two possible VDC scan rates.  So it would not be possible to generate evenly-spaced timer IRQs that follow the VDC scan rate.  You'd have to configure the VIC to raster interrupt at the desired time, as well as the usual time, and wedge into the IRQ handler to trap the mid-screen interrupt.  That, however, poses a synchronization issue, since the VDC dot clock is not related to the VIC's clock.  While I may be wrong, I'm not seeing a workable solution for this.[/list]

Quote from: Blacklord on January 20, 2026, 06:25 AMSven Petersen has released a new piece of hardware for the PET...

That's a nice piece of work...very professional-looking.

Quote from: RobertB on January 21, 2026, 06:18 PMI have the older Stupid PET Tricks adapter, but I didn't know about the Zimmers' list of PET joystick games.

And I just downloaded the Stupid PET Tricks Easter Pack of joystick games at

https://milasoft64.itch.io/stupid-pet-tricks-easter-fun-pack

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group - http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network - http://www.portcommodore.com/sccan

    The first ever demo competition for the Commodore Los Angeles Super Show is happening!  Commodore and Amiga democoders, get your programming skills up and running for the categories of

Graphics
Music
Intros
Demos

For more description on the categories and all the rules and submission details of the CLASS democompo, go to

https://www.commodore.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13274

          Truly,
          Robert Bernardo
          organizer - April 25-26 Commodore Los Angeles Super Show
          http://www.portcommodore.com/class

In the January 2026 issue of the new Compute!'s Gazette magazine, Automatic Proofreader v3.0 was released as a type-in program.  Consisting of about 60 lines in BASIC 2.0, v3.0 "is a universal tool, intelligently detecting whether you are typing on a Commodore 64, VIC-20, C128, or Plus/4.  It seamlessly hooks into the operating system to provide real-time checksums for every line of BASIC you enter, using a version of the tried-and-true algorithm from the February 1986 version."

Automatic Proofreader will now be able to help those programmers who are typing in the Commodore type-in listings from the magazine.

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group - http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network - http://www.portcommodore.com/sccan

Quote from: Blacklord on January 20, 2026, 06:25 AM...found on zimmers.net (https://www.zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/pet/games/english/joy/index.html).

The Coyote Electronics pin configuration is also called "PET User port adapter" in the VICE emulator, so it is expected to be wide spread. Space Invader + is the completed pin configuration of the previously mentioned games and can also be found on the "stupid PET tricks" adapter.

I have the older Stupid PET Tricks adapter, but I didn't know about the Zimmers' list of PET joystick games.

Thanks!
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group - http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network - http://www.portcommodore.com/sccan

Quote from: Hydrophilic on January 17, 2026, 01:51 PM

• BASIC 7.80 (graphics from BASIC now operate on 80-column)

On a side note, the January 2026 of the new Compute!'s Gazette magazine has a review and comparison of several BASIC enhancements for the C64.

Hmm, how many were there for the C128? 
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group - http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network - http://www.portcommodore.com/sccan