This is a combination sale for the three separate items I am offering elsewhere individually.
Included are MITS BASIC (Microsoft), a pair of BASIC games and the MITS Package II software development environment.
ONE: MITS BASIC
This is acopyof a Microsoft BASIC Punched Paper Tape on NOS oiled paper tape along with copies of Bill Gate\'s Open Letter to Hobbyists and his Second and Final Letter responding to reactions to the first one.
In January of 1975 Popular Electronics magazine featured a new computer kit on the cover. TheMITS Altair 8800, while not the first personal computer, was a revolutionary kit that offered a full computer system for a reasonable price. You had to build it yourself, but, if you got it right, you could actually own a computer! This was a big deal in 1975 and the MITS Altair quickly became a hot commodity among geeks and hobbyists.
Two of those geeks wereBill GatesandPaul Allen. They saw the magazine and the potential of the new computer. They also realized that software would be required to make the thing useful. So they \"borrowed\" time on a Harvard owned DEC PDP-10 and used an emulator they had created to write their BASIC code. Eventually a friend (Monte Davidoff) added floating point routines to the language. What would be known as Micro Soft (eventually Microsoft) BASIC was born.
Gates and Allen had contacted MITS to offer them the language and Paul Allen was selected to fly to Albuquerque to demonstrate it.
Having never tested the software on an actual Altair and having written the bootstrap loader on the plane just prior to landing, Allen was able to get the machine to load BASIC on the first try.
This secured both Gates and Allen jobs at MITS and enabled Altair users to program their computers in a language other than machine code.
8K BASIC sold for$200, but was discounted if purchased with a MITS RAM Card.
Most early hobbyists weren\'t too keen on the price, or on paying for software at all, so most people who had BASIC had pirated copies of it.
This prompted Gates to pen the Open Letter to Hobbyists, imploring them to support the nascent software industry.
Now, like members of the famous Home Brew Computer Club and others, you too can own a copy of Microsoft (Altair) BASIC for your own collection!
This is a clean copy of an period copy of BASIC so, if you have the equipment to load and run it, you can enjoy the early personal computing experience yourself.
By default you will get a copy of Altair 8K BASIC 1.1a. Also available, upon request, are Altair 8K BASIC 3.1 and 12K Extended BASIC 3.2
TWO: BASIC Games
Along with the Microsoft BASIC Punched Paper Tape you will want some BASIC programs to run on that.
You could write your own, and probably should, but in case you want something ready made, up for offer here are TWO BASIC games: MOON (Lunar Lander) and TREK (Star Trek Simulator.)
Just load BASIC on the vintage machine of your choice and then load one of these programs to play the game.
Or just keep it around your office to show off how long you\'ve been around.
I won\'t judge!
NOTE: These are recently punched copies of the tapes in my collection. They are bit perfect copies of those on NOS oiled punched paper tape.
THREE: MITS Package II
One of the earliest pieces of software available for the MITS Altair 8800 computer (after Altair BASIC offered in my other listing) was the \"Package II\" set of programs.
Package II was designed to let Altair users program their systems in Assembly language instead of machine code. It offered four separate programs to enable this:
1. An Assembler that would turn assembly language code into executable machine code2. An editor that allowed the user to author assembly language programs or, really, any text3. A debugger that helped the user step through and debug programs4. A monitor that allowed the user to load and execute programs in a controlled environment
Offered for sale areCOPIESof pictured original MITS paper tapes for these four programs. These copies are bit for bit perfect from the originals and are on NOS oiled punched paper tape.
Suitable for use or display.