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154-567: BASIC interpreters are of historical importance. Microsoft 's first product for sale was a BASIC interpreter ( Altair BASIC ), which paved the way for the company's success. Before Altair BASIC, microcomputers were sold as kits that needed to be programmed in machine code (for instance, the Apple I ). During the Altair period, BASIC interpreters were sold separately, becoming the first software sold to individuals rather than to organizations; Apple BASIC

308-594: A BASIC interpreter for the device. Gates called MITS and claimed that he had a working interpreter, and MITS requested a demonstration. Allen worked on a simulator for the Altair while Gates developed the interpreter, and it worked flawlessly when they demonstrated it to MITS in March 1975 in Albuquerque, New Mexico . MITS agreed to distribute it, marketing it as Altair BASIC . Gates and Allen established Microsoft on April 4, 1975, with Gates as CEO, and Allen suggested

462-456: A PDP-10 time-sharing computer. Allen adapted this emulator based on the Altair programmer guide, and they developed and tested the interpreter on Harvard's PDP-10. When Harvard stopped their use of this system, Gates and Allen bought computer time from a timesharing service in Boston to complete their BASIC program debugging. Gates claimed, in his Open Letter to Hobbyists in 1976, the value of

616-469: A central processing unit (CPU) made out of a microprocessor . The computer also includes memory and input/output (I/O) circuitry together mounted on a printed circuit board (PCB). Microcomputers became popular in the 1970s and 1980s with the advent of increasingly powerful microprocessors. The predecessors to these computers, mainframes and minicomputers , were comparatively much larger and more expensive (though indeed present-day mainframes such as

770-870: A proof of concept to demonstrate what such a simple device could do. As microprocessors and semiconductor memory became less expensive, microcomputers grew cheaper and easier to use. All these improvements in cost and usability resulted in an explosion in their popularity during the late 1970s and early 1980s. A large number of computer makers packaged microcomputers for use in small business applications. By 1979, many companies such as Cromemco , Processor Technology , IMSAI , North Star Computers , Southwest Technical Products Corporation , Ohio Scientific , Altos Computer Systems , Morrow Designs and others produced systems designed for resourceful end users or consulting firms to deliver business systems such as accounting, database management and word processing to small businesses. This allowed businesses unable to afford leasing of

924-557: A syntax chart for the language. He did not know that HP's BASIC was very different from the DEC BASIC variety used in 101 Games . The two languages differed principally in terms of string handling and control structures. Data General Business Basic , an integer-only implementation, was the inspiration for Atari BASIC. In contrast, Dennis Allison , a member of the Computer Science faculty at Stanford University , wrote

1078-603: A web browser . In 2014, Robin H. Edwards released Arduino BASIC for the Arduino , and now a widely forked implementation. Another implementation using the same name was adapted from Palo Alto Tiny BASIC in 1984 by Gordon Brandly for his 68000 Tiny BASIC, later ported to C by Mike Field. Many BASIC interpreters are now available for smartphones and tablets via the Apple App Store , or Google Play store for Android. Today, coding BASIC interpreters has become part of

1232-404: A BASIC interpreter could be. Because RAM were sold as 4 KB chips, Altair BASIC was initially packaged in separate editions for 4K, 8K, and 12K; this carried over to ROM chips, as manufacturers would decide how many ROM chips they could fit in their design, given price goals and other constraints. The first implementation of BASIC, Dartmouth BASIC , was a compiler. Generally, compilers examine

1386-552: A Microsoft BASIC. In November 1985, Apple abruptly ended the project as part of a deal with Microsoft to extend the license for BASIC on the Apple II . \ BASIC interpreters were not just an American/British development. In 1984, Hudson Soft released Family BASIC in the Japanese market for Nintendo's Family Computer video game console, an integer-only implementation designed for game programming, based on Hudson Soft BASIC for

1540-528: A Microsoft operating system or a non-Microsoft operating system. In effect, the royalty payment to Microsoft when no Microsoft product is being used acts as a penalty, or tax, on the OEM's use of a competing PC operating system. Since 1988, Microsoft's use of per processor licenses has increased." Following Bill Gates's internal "Internet Tidal Wave memo" on May 26, 1995, Microsoft began to redefine its offerings and expand its product line into computer networking and

1694-448: A call must verify on their respective ends. On October 7, Microsoft acquired Ally.io, a software service that measures companies' progress against OKRs . Microsoft plans to incorporate Ally.io into its Viva family of employee experience products. On January 18, 2022, Microsoft announced the acquisition of American video game developer and holding company Activision Blizzard in an all-cash deal worth $ 68.7 billion. Activision Blizzard

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1848-523: A chain of Microsoft-branded retail stores, and on October 22, 2009, the first retail Microsoft Store opened in Scottsdale, Arizona ; the same day Windows 7 was officially released to the public. Windows 7's focus was on refining Vista with ease-of-use features and performance enhancements, rather than an extensive reworking of Windows. As the smartphone industry boomed in the late 2000s, Microsoft had struggled to keep up with its rivals in providing

2002-722: A combination of AI, high-performance computing and quantum computing . The service includes Copilot, a GPT-4 based large language model tool to query and visualize data, write code, initiate simulations, and educate researchers. At a November 2023 developer conference, Microsoft announced two new custom-designed computing chips: The Maia chip, designed to run large language models, and Cobalt CPU, designed to power general cloud services on Azure. On November 20, 2023, Satya Nadella announced that Sam Altman , who had been ousted as CEO of OpenAI just days earlier, and Greg Brockman , who had resigned as president, would join Microsoft to lead

2156-409: A compiler, the entire source code is converted during what appears to the user as a single operation, whereas an interpreter converts and runs the source one statement at a time. The resulting machine code is executed, rather than output, and then that code is then discarded and the process repeats with the next statement. This dispenses with the need for some form of secondary storage while an executable

2310-525: A completely new user interface with a novel start button , and 32-bit compatibility; similar to NT, it provided the Win32 API. Windows 95 came bundled with the online service MSN , which was at first intended to be a competitor to the Internet, and (for OEMs) Internet Explorer , a Web browser . Internet Explorer has not bundled with the retail Windows 95 boxes, because the boxes were printed before

2464-595: A computer based on a microprocessor – the Intel 8008 8-bit microprocessor. This Micral-N was marketed in early 1973 as a "Micro-ordinateur" or microcomputer , mainly for scientific and process-control applications. About a hundred Micral-N were installed in the next two years, followed by a new version based on the Intel 8080. Meanwhile, another French team developed the Alvan, a small computer for office automation which found clients in banks and other sectors. The first version

2618-463: A computer had to be big in size to be powerful, and thus decided to market them as calculators. Additionally, at that time, people were more likely to buy calculators than computers, and, purchasing agents also preferred the term "calculator" because purchasing a "computer" required additional layers of purchasing authority approvals. The Datapoint 2200 , made by CTC in 1970, was also comparable to microcomputers. While it contains no microprocessor,

2772-456: A day after hosting a Sting concert for 50 people, including Microsoft executives, in Davos , Switzerland. On January 23, 2023, Microsoft announced a new multi-year, multi-billion dollar investment deal with ChatGPT developer OpenAI . In June 2023, Microsoft released Azure Quantum Elements to run molecular simulations and calculations in computational chemistry and materials science using

2926-551: A deluxe version for $ 399.99. Increasingly present in the hardware business following Xbox, Microsoft 2006 released the Zune series of digital media players, a successor of its previous software platform Portable Media Center . These expanded on previous hardware commitments from Microsoft following its original Microsoft Mouse in 1983; as of 2007 the company sold the best-selling wired keyboard ( Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 ), mouse ( IntelliMouse ), and desktop webcam ( LifeCam ) in

3080-422: A disk operating system included in a series of programmable read-only memory chips (PROMs); 8 Kilobytes of RAM; IBM's Basic Assembly Language (BAL); a hard drive; a color display; a printer output; a 150 bit/s serial interface for connecting to a mainframe; and even the world's first microcomputer front panel. In early 1973, Sord Computer Corporation (now Toshiba Personal Computer System Corporation ) completed

3234-661: A focus on multimedia: STOS BASIC for the Atari ST , in 1988, and AMOS BASIC for the Amiga , in 1990. In May 1991, Microsoft released Visual Basic , a third-generation event-driven programming language known for its Component Object Model (COM) programming model. Visual Basic supported the rapid application development (RAD) of graphical user interface (GUI) applications, access to databases using Data Access Objects , Remote Data Objects , or ActiveX Data Objects , and creation of ActiveX controls and objects. Visual Basic

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3388-495: A fully interactive development environment for the original Macintosh computer and was developed by Donn Denman, Marianne Hsiung, Larry Kenyon, and Bryan Stearns. MacBASIC was released as beta software in 1985 and was adopted for use in places such as the Dartmouth College computer science department, for use in an introductory programming course. It was doomed to be the second Apple-developed BASIC killed in favor of

3542-528: A game creation system for Microsoft Windows , with accompanying IDE and development tools. In 2001, SmallBASIC was released for the Palm PDA . Another BASIC interpreter for Palm was HotPaw BASIC, an offshoot of Chipmunk Basic . In 2002, Emmanuel Chailloux, Pascal Manoury and Bruno Pagano published a Tiny BASIC as an example of developing applications with Objective Caml . In 2011, Microsoft released Small Basic (distinct from SmallBASIC), together with

3696-469: A graphical extension for MS-DOS , despite having begun jointly developing OS/2 with IBM that August. Microsoft moved its headquarters from Bellevue to Redmond, Washington , on February 26, 1986, and went public on March 13, with the resulting rise in stock making an estimated four billionaires and 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees. Microsoft released its version of OS/2 to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) on April 2, 1987. In 1990,

3850-471: A joint venture with NBC since 1996. On October 1, Microsoft announced its intention to launch a news operation, part of a new-look MSN , with Windows 8 later in the month. On October 26, 2012, Microsoft launched Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface . Three days later, Windows Phone 8 was launched. To cope with the potential for an increase in demand for products and services, Microsoft opened

4004-530: A major target of the controversy, will leave the company after the acquisition is finalized. The deal was closed on October 13, 2023. In December 2022, Microsoft announced a new 10-year deal with the London Stock Exchange Group for products including Microsoft Azure; Microsoft acquired around 4% of LSEG as part of the deal. In January 2023, CEO Satya Nadella announced Microsoft would lay off some 10,000 employees. The announcement came

4158-419: A minicomputer or time-sharing service the opportunity to automate business functions, without (usually) hiring a full-time staff to operate the computers. A representative system of this era would have used an S100 bus , an 8-bit processor such as an Intel 8080 or Zilog Z80 , and either CP/M or MP/M operating system. The increasing availability and power of desktop computers for personal use attracted

4312-622: A mode for the Windows operating system rather than a separate and unique operating system. In March the company also established guidelines that censor users of Office 365 from using profanity in private documents. In April 2018, Microsoft released the source code for Windows File Manager under the MIT License to celebrate the program's 20th anniversary. In April the company further expressed willingness to embrace open source initiatives by announcing Azure Sphere as its own derivative of

4466-567: A modern smartphone operating system, falling behind Apple and Google -sponsored Android in the United States. As a result, in 2010 Microsoft revamped their aging flagship mobile operating system, Windows Mobile , replacing it with the new Windows Phone OS that was released in October that year. It used a new user interface design language, codenamed "Metro", which prominently used simple shapes, typography, and iconography, utilizing

4620-587: A motion-sensing input device made by Microsoft and designed as a video game controller , first introduced in November 2010, was upgraded for the 2013 release of the Xbox One video game console. Kinect's capabilities were revealed in May 2013: an ultra-wide 1080p camera, function in the dark due to an infrared sensor, higher-end processing power and new software, the ability to distinguish between fine movements (such as

4774-605: A new 24/7 cable news channel, MSNBC . Microsoft created Windows CE 1.0 , a new OS designed for devices with low memory and other constraints, such as personal digital assistants . In October 1997, the Justice Department filed a motion in the Federal District Court , stating that Microsoft violated an agreement signed in 1994 and asked the court to stop the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows. On January 13, 2000, Bill Gates handed over

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4928-418: A new advanced AI research team. However, the plan was short-lived, as Altman was subsequently reinstated as OpenAI's CEO and Brockman rejoined the company amid pressure from OpenAI's employees and investors on its board. In March 2024, Inflection AI 's cofounders Mustafa Suleyman and Karen Simonyan announced their departure from the company in order to start Microsoft AI, with Microsoft acqui-hiring nearly

5082-646: A number of "holiday stores" across the U.S. to complement the increasing number of "bricks-and-mortar" Microsoft Stores that opened in 2012. On March 29, 2013, Microsoft launched a Patent Tracker. In August 2012, the New York City Police Department announced a partnership with Microsoft for the development of the Domain Awareness System which is used for Police surveillance in New York City . The Kinect ,

5236-410: A portion if it were to go through. On August 5, 2020, Microsoft stopped its xCloud game streaming test for iOS devices. According to Microsoft, the future of xCloud on iOS remains unclear and potentially out of Microsoft's hands. Apple has imposed a strict limit on " remote desktop clients " which means applications are only allowed to connect to a user-owned host device or gaming console owned by

5390-601: A publishing division named Microsoft Press . Paul Allen resigned from Microsoft in 1983 after developing Hodgkin's lymphoma . Allen claimed in Idea Man: A Memoir by the co-founder of Microsoft that Gates wanted to dilute his share in the company when he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease because he did not think that he was working hard enough. Allen later invested in low-tech sectors, sports teams, commercial real estate, neuroscience, private space flight, and more. Microsoft released Windows 1.0 on November 20, 1985, as

5544-461: A reasonable distribution format. Software increasingly came pre-compiled and transmitted on floppy disk or via bulletin board systems , making the need for source listings less important. Additionally, increasingly sophisticated command shells like MS-DOS and the Mac GUI became the primary user interface , and the need for BASIC to act as the shell disappeared. The use of BASIC interpreters as

5698-452: A record profit in 2007. The European Union imposed another fine of €899 million ($ 1.4 billion) for Microsoft's lack of compliance with the March 2004 judgment on February 27, 2008, saying that the company charged rivals unreasonable prices for key information about its workgroup and backoffice servers. Microsoft stated that it was in compliance and that "these fines are about the past issues that have been resolved". 2007 also saw

5852-443: A rudimentary computer to track and analyze automobile traffic data. Gates enrolled at Harvard University while Allen pursued a degree in computer science at Washington State University , though he later dropped out to work at Honeywell . The January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics featured Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems 's (MITS) Altair 8800 microcomputer, which inspired Allen to suggest that they could program

6006-537: A specification for a simple version of the language. Allison was urged to create the standard by Bob Albrecht of the Homebrew Computer Club , who had seen BASIC on minicomputers and felt it would be the perfect match for new machines like the Altair. Allison's proposed design only used integer arithmetic and did not support arrays or string manipulation. The goal was for the program to fit in 2 to 3 kilobytes of memory. The overall design for Tiny BASIC

6160-404: A system that wrote out the source, compiled it, and then ran the result would have taken minutes. Because of these constraints, interpreters proliferated. Interpreters ultimately perform the same basic tasks as compilers, reading the source code and converting that into executable instructions calling runtime functions. The primary difference is when they perform the various tasks. In the case of

6314-483: A teaching curriculum and an introductory guide., designed to help students who have learnt visual programming languages such as Scratch learn text-based programming. The associated IDE provides a simplified programming environment with functionality such as syntax highlighting , intelligent code completion , and in-editor documentation access. The language has only 14 keywords. In 2019, Microsoft announced Small Basic Online (SBO), allowing students to run programs from

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6468-453: A thumb movement), and determining a user's heart rate by looking at their face. Microsoft filed a patent application in 2011 that suggests that the corporation may use the Kinect camera system to monitor the behavior of television viewers as part of a plan to make the viewing experience more interactive. On July 19, 2013, Microsoft stocks suffered their biggest one-day percentage sell-off since

6622-557: A time, although they can often be modified with software or hardware to concurrently serve more than one user. Microcomputers fit well on or under desks or tables, so that they are within easy access of users. Bigger computers like minicomputers , mainframes , and supercomputers take up large cabinets or even dedicated rooms. A microcomputer comes equipped with at least one type of data storage, usually RAM . Although some microcomputers (particularly early 8-bit home micros) perform tasks using RAM alone, some form of secondary storage

6776-409: A typical mainframe might have on the order of 64 KB. On a timesharing system, the case for most 1960s BASICs, that memory was shared among many users. In order to make a compiler work, the systems had to have some form of high-performance secondary storage , typically a hard drive . Program editing took place in a dedicated environment that wrote the user's source code to a temporary file. When

6930-509: A wide variety of Tiny BASICs with added features or other improvements, with well-known versions from Tom Pittman and Li-Chen Wang , both members of the Homebrew Computer Club. Tiny BASIC was published openly and Wang coined the term "copyleft" to encourage others to copy his source code. Hobbyists and professionals created their own implementations, making Tiny BASIC an example of a free software project that existed before

7084-497: A wider movement towards time-sharing systems. General Electric , having worked on the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System and its associated Dartmouth BASIC , wrote their own underlying operating system and launched an online time-sharing system known as Mark I featuring a BASIC compiler (not an interpreter) as one of its primary selling points. Other companies in the emerging field quickly followed suit. By

7238-505: Is US$ 500,000 per year. Some analysts deemed this unthinkable ten years prior, however, as in 2001 then-CEO Steve Ballmer called Linux "cancer". Microsoft planned to launch a preview of Intune for Education "in the coming weeks", with general availability scheduled for spring 2017, priced at $ 30 per device, or through volume licensing agreements. In January 2018, Microsoft patched Windows 10 to account for CPU problems related to Intel's Meltdown security breach . The patch led to issues with

7392-456: Is a major challenge, but it eliminates the need for secondary storage and was the only practical solution for early minicomputers and most of the history of the home computer revolution. Language design for the first interpreters often simply involved referencing other implementations. For instance, Wozniak's references for BASIC were an HP BASIC manual and a copy of 101 BASIC Computer Games . Based on these sources, Wozniak began sketching out

7546-447: Is being built. The primary disadvantage is that you can no longer split the different parts of the overall process apart - the code needed to convert the source into machine operations has to be loaded into memory along with the runtime needed to perform it, and in most cases, the source code editor as well. Producing a language with all of these components that can fit into a small amount of memory and still has room for user's source code

7700-595: Is best known for producing franchises, including but not limited to Warcraft , Diablo , Call of Duty , StarCraft , Candy Crush Saga , Crash Bandicoot , Spyro , Tony Hawk's , Guitar Hero , and Overwatch . Activision and Microsoft each released statements saying the acquisition was to benefit their businesses in the metaverse , many saw Microsoft's acquisition of video game studios as an attempt to compete against Meta Platforms , with TheStreet referring to Microsoft wanting to become "the Disney of

7854-559: Is common in computer language grammar notation, the vertical bar (" | ") distinguishes alternatives, as does being listed on separate lines. The symbol " CR " denotes a carriage return . This syntax, as simple as it was, added one innovation: GOTO and GOSUB could take an expression rather than a line number, providing an assigned GOTO rather than the switch statement of the ON-GOTO/GOSUB structure more typical of BASIC. Sinclair BASIC used as its language definition

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8008-549: Is considered one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Alphabet , Amazon , Apple , and Meta . However it has been criticized for its monopolistic practices and the company's software has been criticized for problems with ease of use , robustness , and security . Childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen sought to make a business using their skills in computer programming . In 1972, they founded Traf-O-Data , which sold

8162-600: Is currently the third-largest gaming company in the world by revenue, following the 2023 acquisition of Activision Blizzard for $ 68.7 billion. Microsoft has been market-dominant in the IBM PC–compatible operating system market and the office software suite market since the 1990s. Its best-known software products are the Windows line of operating systems , the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity applications,

8316-806: Is normally desirable. In the early days of home micros, this was often a data cassette deck (in many cases as an external unit). Later, secondary storage (particularly in the form of floppy disk and hard disk drives) were built into the microcomputer case. Although they did not contain any microprocessors, but were built around transistor-transistor logic (TTL), Hewlett-Packard calculators as far back as 1968 had various levels of programmability comparable to microcomputers. The HP 9100B (1968) had rudimentary conditional (if) statements, statement line numbers, jump statements ( go to ), registers that could be used as variables, and primitive subroutines. The programming language resembled assembly language in many ways. Later models incrementally added more features, including

8470-534: Is sometimes called the first generation of microcomputers. Many companies such as DEC , National Semiconductor , Texas Instruments offered their microcomputers for use in terminal control, peripheral device interface control and industrial machine control. There were also machines for engineering development and hobbyist personal use. In 1975, the Processor Technology SOL-20 was designed, which consisted of one board which included all

8624-545: The Altair 8800 shortly after the machine itself, showcasing BASIC as the primary language for early microcomputers. In March 1975, Steve Wozniak attended the first meeting of the Homebrew Computer Club and began formulating the design of his own computer. Club members were excited by Altair BASIC. Wozniak concluded that his machine would have to have a BASIC of its own. At the time he was working at Hewlett Packard and used their minicomputer dialect, HP Time-Shared BASIC , as

8778-613: The Azure cloud computing platform, and the Edge web browser. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface lineup of touchscreen personal computers. Other consumer and enterprise software it produces include Internet search with Bing ; digital services through MSN ; mixed reality through HoloLens ; cloud computing with Azure ; and software development through Visual Studio . Today, Microsoft

8932-450: The BASIC programming language (HP 9830A in 1971). Some models had tape storage and small printers. However, displays were limited to one line at a time. The HP 9100A was referred to as a personal computer in an advertisement in a 1968 Science magazine, but that advertisement was quickly dropped. HP was reluctant to sell them as "computers" because the perception at that time was that

9086-460: The Department of Justice's Antitrust Division filed a competitive impact statement that said: "Beginning in 1988 and continuing until July 15, 1994, Microsoft induced many OEMs to execute anti-competitive 'per processor licenses. Under a per-processor license, an OEM pays Microsoft a royalty for each computer it sells containing a particular microprocessor, whether the OEM sells the computer with

9240-646: The IBM PC team, said, "IBM has an excellent BASIC--it's well received, runs fast on mainframe computers, and it's a lot more functional than micro-computer BASICs... But [its] number of users were infinitesimal compared to the number of Microsoft BASIC users. Microsoft BASIC had hundreds of thousands of users around the world. How are you going to argue with that?" (See Microsoft BASIC for the subsequent history of these different implementations.) Many vendors did "argue with that" and used other firms or wrote their own interpreters. In September 1978, Shepardson Microsystems

9394-666: The IBM System z machines use one or more custom microprocessors as their CPUs). Many microcomputers (when equipped with a keyboard and screen for input and output) are also personal computers (in the generic sense). An early use of the term "personal computer" in 1962 predates microprocessor-based designs. (See "Personal Computer: Computers at Companies" reference below) . A "microcomputer" used as an embedded control system may have no human-readable input and output devices. "Personal computer" may be used generically or may denote an IBM PC compatible machine. The abbreviation "micro"

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9548-599: The Linux operating system. In May 2018, Microsoft partnered with 17 American intelligence agencies to develop cloud computing products. The project is dubbed "Azure Government" and has ties to the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) surveillance program. On June 4, 2018, Microsoft officially announced the acquisition of GitHub for $ 7.5 billion, a deal that closed on October 26, 2018. On July 10, 2018, Microsoft revealed

9702-545: The Micral N. The same year the company filed their patents with the term "Micro-ordinateur", a literal equivalent of "Microcomputer", to designate a solid state machine designed with a microprocessor. In the US the earliest models such as the Altair 8800 were often sold as kits to be assembled by the user, and came with as little as 256 bytes of RAM , and no input/output devices other than indicator lights and switches, useful as

9856-470: The Microsoft Azure virtual machines reliant on Intel's CPU architecture. On January 12, Microsoft released PowerShell Core 6.0 for the macOS and Linux operating systems. In February 2018, Microsoft killed notification support for their Windows Phone devices which effectively ended firmware updates for the discontinued devices. In March 2018, Microsoft recalled Windows 10 S to change it to

10010-576: The OCaml Tiny BASIC . Initially, interpreters were either bundled with computer hardware or developed as a custom service, before an industry producing independently packaged software for organizations came about in the late 1960s. BASIC interpreters were first sold separately from microcomputers, then built-in, before becoming sold as applications again in the DOS era. As the market shifted to ROMs, ROM size came to dominate decisions about how large

10164-580: The Open Networking Foundation started on March 23, 2011. Fellow founders were Google , HPE Networking , Yahoo! , Verizon Communications , Deutsche Telekom and 17 other companies. This nonprofit organization is focused on providing support for a cloud computing initiative called Software-Defined Networking. The initiative is meant to speed innovation through simple software changes in telecommunications networks, wireless networks, data centers, and other networking areas. Following

10318-664: The SWTPC (a 6800 system) on a legal pad. Steve Wozniak wrote the code to Integer BASIC by hand, translating the assembler code instructions into their machine code equivalents and then uploading the result to his computer. (Because of this, the program was very hard to change, and Wozniak was not able to modify it quickly enough for Steve Jobs , who subsequently licensed BASIC from Microsoft.) Gates and Allen did not have an Altair system on which to develop and test their interpreter. However, Allen had written an Intel 8008 emulator for their previous venture, Traf-O-Data , that ran on

10472-637: The Sinclair QL . In 1983, Randall Hyde developed SmartBASIC for the Coleco Adam . Richard Clayton, Chris Hall, and Paul Overell developed Mallard BASIC for the BBC Micro and Locomotive BASIC for the Amstrad CPC , both supporting commands for an ISAM indexed file system. In 1985, MetaComCo released ABasiC for the Amiga and ST BASIC for the Atari ST . In 1978, David Lien published

10626-515: The Surface Go platform to the public. Later in the month, it converted Microsoft Teams to gratis . In August 2018, Microsoft released two projects called Microsoft AccountGuard and Defending Democracy. It also unveiled Snapdragon 850 compatibility for Windows 10 on the ARM architecture . In August 2018, Toyota Tsusho began a partnership with Microsoft to create fish farming tools using

10780-604: The World Wide Web . With a few exceptions of new companies, like Netscape , Microsoft was the only major and established company that acted fast enough to be a part of the World Wide Web practically from the start. Other companies like Borland , WordPerfect , Novell , IBM and Lotus , being much slower to adapt to the new situation, would give Microsoft market dominance. The company released Windows 95 on August 24, 1995, featuring pre-emptive multitasking ,

10934-495: The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S video game consoles. In February 2021, Microsoft released Azure Quantum for public preview.  The public cloud computing platform provides access to quantum software and quantum hardware including  trapped ion ,  neutral atom , and  superconducting  systems. In April 2021, Microsoft announced it would buy Nuance Communications for approximately $ 16 billion. The acquisition of Nuance

11088-583: The free software movement . Many firms developed BASIC interpreters. In 1976, SCELBI introduced SCELBAL for the 8008 and the University of Idaho and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory announced that they would be publishing to the public domain LLL BASIC, which included floating-point support. In 1977, the Apple II and TRS-80 Model I each had two versions of BASIC, a smaller version introduced with

11242-566: The instruction set of its custom TTL processor was the basis of the instruction set for the Intel 8008 , and for practical purposes the system behaves approximately as if it contains an 8008. This is because Intel was the contractor in charge of developing the Datapoint's CPU, but ultimately CTC rejected the 8008 design because it needed 20 support chips. Another early system, the Kenbak-1 ,

11396-487: The retrocomputing hobby. Higher level programming languages on systems with extensive RAM have simplified implementing BASIC interpreters. For instance, line management is simple if your implementation language supports sparse matrixes , variable management is simple with associative arrays , and program execution is easy with eval functions. As examples, see the open-source project Vintage BASIC, written in Haskell or

11550-580: The 1978 American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Minimal BASIC standard, but was itself an incomplete implementation with integer arithmetic only. The ANSI standard was published after the design of the first generation of interpreters for microcomputers. Common components of a BASIC interpreter: Early microcomputers lacked development tools, and programmers either developed their code on minicomputers or by hand. For instance, Dick Whipple and John Arnold wrote Tiny BASIC Extended directly in machine code, using octal . Robert Uiterwyk handwrote MICRO BASIC for

11704-496: The Altair itself was only a mild commercial success, it helped spark a huge industry. By 1977, the introduction of the second microcomputer generation as consumer goods , known as home computers , made them considerably easier to use than their predecessors because their predecessors' operation often demanded thorough familiarity with practical electronics. The ability to connect to a monitor (screen) or TV set allowed visual manipulation of text and numbers. The BASIC language, which

11858-574: The CEO position to Steve Ballmer , an old college friend of Gates and employee of the company since 1980, while creating a new position for himself as Chief Software Architect . Various companies including Microsoft formed the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance in October 1999 to (among other things) increase security and protect intellectual property through identifying changes in hardware and software. Critics decried

12012-662: The Federal Trade Commission examined Microsoft for possible collusion due to the partnership with IBM, marking the beginning of more than a decade of legal clashes with the government. Meanwhile, the company was at work on Microsoft Windows NT , which was heavily based on their copy of the OS/2 code. It shipped on July 21, 1993, with a new modular kernel and the 32-bit Win32 application programming interface (API), making it easier to port from 16-bit (MS-DOS-based) Windows. Microsoft informed IBM of Windows NT, and

12166-623: The IBM PC itself was widely imitated, as well as the term. The component parts were commonly available to producers and the BIOS was reverse engineered through cleanroom design techniques. IBM PC compatible "clones" became commonplace, and the terms "personal computer", and especially "PC", stuck with the general public, often specifically for a computer compatible with DOS (or nowadays Windows). Monitors, keyboards and other devices for input and output may be integrated or separate. Computer memory in

12320-484: The Microsoft Azure application suite for Internet of things (IoT) technologies related to water management. Developed in part by researchers from Kindai University , the water pump mechanisms use artificial intelligence to count the number of fish on a conveyor belt , analyze the number of fish, and deduce the effectiveness of water flow from the data the fish provide. The specific computer programs used in

12474-503: The OS/2 partnership deteriorated. In 1990, Microsoft introduced the Microsoft Office suite which bundled separate applications such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel . On May 22, Microsoft launched Windows 3.0 , featuring streamlined user interface graphics and improved protected mode capability for the Intel 386 processor, and both Office and Windows became dominant in their respective areas. On July 27, 1994,

12628-653: The SMP80/08, which used the Intel 8008 microprocessor. The SMP80/08, however, did not have a commercial release. After the first general-purpose microprocessor, the Intel 8080 , was announced in April 1974, Sord announced the SMP80/x, the first microcomputer to use the 8080, in May 1974. Virtually all early microcomputers were essentially boxes with lights and switches; one had to read and understand binary numbers and machine language to program and use them (the Datapoint 2200

12782-768: The Sharp MZ80 (with English keywords). Turbo-Basic XL is a compatible superset of Atari BASIC, developed by Frank Ostrowski and published in the December 1985 issue of German computer magazine Happy Computer , making it one of the last interpreters published as a type-in program . The language included a compiler in addition to the interpreter and featured structured programming commands. Several modified versions working with different DOS systems were released by other authors. In France, François Lionet and Constantin Sotiropoulos developed two BASIC interpreters with

12936-607: The Surface, in 2012, and the formation of Microsoft Mobile through Nokia . Since Satya Nadella took over as CEO in 2014, the company has changed focus towards cloud computing , as well as its large acquisition of LinkedIn for $ 26.2 billion in 2016. Under Nadella's direction, the company has also expanded its video gaming business to support the Xbox brand, establishing the Microsoft Gaming division in 2022, which

13090-632: The TI-99/4A. Sinclair BASIC was developed for the ZX-80 by John Grant and Steve Vickers of Nine Tiles. In 1980, Sophie Wilson of Acorn Computers developed Atom BASIC , which she later evolved into BBC BASIC , one of the first interpreters to offer structured BASIC programming, with named DEF PROC / DEF FN procedures and functions, REPEAT UNTIL loops, and IF THEN ELSE structures inspired by COMAL . Jan Jones developed SuperBASIC , another British BASIC supporting structured programming, for

13244-543: The U.S. smartphone market in January 2016 was 2.7%. During the summer of 2015 the company lost $ 7.6 billion related to its mobile-phone business, firing 7,800 employees. In 2015, the construction of a data center in Mecklenburg County , Virginia led to the destruction of a historic African American cemetery despite archeological recommendations for preservation. On March 1, 2016, Microsoft announced

13398-462: The United States. That year the company also launched the Surface "digital table", later renamed PixelSense . Released in January 2007, the next version of Windows, Vista , focused on features, security and a redesigned user interface dubbed Aero . Microsoft Office 2007 , released at the same time, featured a " Ribbon " user interface which was a significant departure from its predecessors. Relatively strong sales of both products helped to produce

13552-499: The ability to detect, decide and engage before the enemy." In November 2018, Microsoft introduced Azure Multi-Factor Authentication for Microsoft Azure. In December 2018, Microsoft announced Project Mu , an open source release of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) core used in Microsoft Surface and Hyper-V products. The project promotes the idea of Firmware as a Service . In

13706-400: The alliance as a way to enforce indiscriminate restrictions over how consumers use software, and over how computers behave, and as a form of digital rights management : for example, the scenario where a computer is not only secured for its owner but also secured against its owner as well. On April 3, 2000, a judgment was handed down in the case of United States v. Microsoft Corp. , calling

13860-439: The attention of more software developers. As the industry matured, the market for personal computers standardized around IBM PC compatibles running DOS , and later Windows . Modern desktop computers, video game consoles , laptops , tablet PCs , and many types of handheld devices , including mobile phones , pocket calculators , and industrial embedded systems , may all be considered examples of microcomputers according to

14014-632: The basis for his own version. Integer BASIC was released on cassette for the Apple I , and was supplied in ROM when the Apple II shipped in the summer of 1977. Other members of the Homebrew Computer Club began circulating copies of Altair BASIC on paper tape, causing Gates to write his Open Letter to Hobbyists , complaining about this early example of software piracy . Partially in response to Gate's letter, and partially to make an even smaller BASIC that would run usefully on 4 KB machines, Bob Albrecht urged Dennis Allison to write their own variation of

14168-488: The company , citing it abused its dominance with the Windows OS, resulting in a judgment of €497 million ($ 613 million) and requiring Microsoft to produce new versions of Windows XP without Windows Media Player : Windows XP Home Edition N and Windows XP Professional N. In November 2005, the company's second video game console, the Xbox 360 , was released. There were two versions, a basic version for $ 299.99 and

14322-541: The company an "abusive monopoly." Microsoft later settled with the U.S. Department of Justice in 2004. On October 25, 2001, Microsoft released Windows XP , unifying the mainstream and NT lines of OS under the NT codebase. The company released the Xbox later that year, entering the video game console market dominated by Sony and Nintendo . In March 2004 the European Union brought antitrust legal action against

14476-606: The company announced it was laying off 1,850 workers, and taking an impairment and restructuring charge of $ 950 million. In June 2016, Microsoft announced a project named Microsoft Azure Information Protection. It aims to help enterprises protect their data as it moves between servers and devices. In November 2016, Microsoft joined the Linux Foundation as a Platinum member during Microsoft's Connect(); developer event in New York. The cost of each Platinum membership

14630-452: The company has since expanded to Internet services, cloud computing , video gaming and other fields. Microsoft is the largest software maker , one of the most valuable public U.S. companies, and one of the most valuable brands globally. Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800 . It rose to dominate the personal computer operating system market with MS-DOS in

14784-633: The company's war profiteering from a $ 480 million contract to develop virtual reality headsets for the United States Army . On March 26, 2020, Microsoft announced it was acquiring Affirmed Networks for about $ 1.35 billion. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic , Microsoft closed all of its retail stores indefinitely due to health concerns. On July 22, 2020, Microsoft announced plans to close its Mixer service, planning to move existing partners to Facebook Gaming . On July 31, 2020, it

14938-483: The computer time for the first year of software development was $ 40,000. Not that Allen couldn't handcode in machine language. While on final approach into the Albuquerque airport on a trip to demonstrate the interpreter, Allen realized he had forgotten to write a bootstrap program to read the tape into memory. Writing in 8080 machine language, Allen finished the program before the plane landed. Only when he loaded

15092-468: The concept of minimalism. Microsoft implemented a new strategy for the software industry, providing a consistent user experience across all smartphones using the Windows Phone OS. It launched an alliance with Nokia in 2011 and Microsoft worked closely with the company to co-develop Windows Phone, but remained partners with long-time Windows Mobile OEM HTC . Microsoft is a founding member of

15246-579: The creation of a multi-core unit at Microsoft, following the steps of server companies such as Sun and IBM. Gates retired from his role as Chief Software Architect on June 27, 2008, a decision announced in June 2006, while retaining other positions related to the company in addition to being an advisor for the company on key projects. Azure Services Platform , the company's entry into the cloud computing market for Windows, launched on October 27, 2008. On February 12, 2009, Microsoft announced its intent to open

15400-465: The definition given above. By the early 2000s, everyday use of the expression "microcomputer" (and in particular "micro") declined significantly from its peak in the mid-1980s. The term is most commonly associated with the most popular 8-bit home computers (such as the Apple II , ZX Spectrum , Commodore 64 , BBC Micro , and TRS-80 ) and small-business CP/M -based microcomputers. In colloquial usage, "microcomputer" has been largely supplanted by

15554-404: The early 1970s, BASIC was largely universal on general-purpose mainframe computers. BASIC, as a streamlined language designed with integrated line editing in mind, was naturally suited to porting to the minicomputer market, which was emerging at the same time as the time-sharing services. These machines had very small main memory , perhaps as little as 4 KB in modern terminology, and lacked

15708-411: The entire program in a multi-step process and produce a second file that is directly executable in the host computer's underlying machine language without reference to the source code. This code is often made up of calls to pre-written routines in the language's runtime system . The executable will normally be smaller than the source code that created it. The main disadvantage of compilers, at least in

15862-443: The entirety of its 70-person workforce. As part of the deal, Microsoft paid Inflection $ 650 million to license its technology. In January 2024, Microsoft became the most valued publicly traded company. Meanwhile, that month, the company announced a subscription offering of artificial intelligence for small businesses via Copilot Pro. Microcomputer A microcomputer is a small, relatively inexpensive computer having

16016-413: The first microcomputers in the mid-1970s continued the explosive growth of BASIC, which had the advantage that it was fairly well known to the young designers and computer hobbyists who took an interest in microcomputers, many of whom had seen BASIC on minis or mainframes. BASIC was one of the few languages that was both high-level enough to be usable by those without training and small enough to fit into

16170-528: The first edition of The BASIC Handbook: An Encyclopedia of the BASIC Computer Language , documenting keywords across over 78 different computers. By 1981, the second edition documented keywords from over 250 different computers, showcasing the explosive growth of the microcomputer era. With the rise of disk operating systems and later graphical user interfaces , BASIC interpreters became just one application among many, rather than providing

16324-600: The first prompt a user might see when turning on a computer. In 1983, the TRS-80 Model 100 portable computer debuted, with its Microsoft BASIC implementation noteworthy for two reasons. First, programs were edited using the simple text editor, TEXT, rather than typed in line by line (but line numbers were still required). Second, this was the last Microsoft product that Bill Gates developed personally. Also in 1983, Microsoft began bundling GW-BASIC with DOS. Functionally identical to IBM BASICA , its BASIC interpreter

16478-501: The form of RAM , and at least one other less volatile, memory storage device are usually combined with the CPU on a system bus in one unit. Other devices that make up a complete microcomputer system include batteries, a power supply unit, a keyboard and various input/output devices used to convey information to and from a human operator ( printers , monitors , human interface devices ). Microcomputers are designed to serve only one user at

16632-533: The high-performance storage like hard drives that make compilers practical. In contrast, an interpreter would take fewer computing resources, at the expense of performance. In 1968, Hewlett Packard introduced the HP 2000 , a system that was based around its HP Time-Shared BASIC interpreter. In 1969, Dan Paymar and Ira Baxter wrote another early BASIC interpreter for the Data General Nova . One holdout

16786-399: The historical context, is that they require large amounts of temporary memory. As the compiler works, it is producing an ever-growing output file that is being held in memory along with the original source code. Additional memory for temporary lookups, notably line numbers in the case of BASIC, adds to the memory requirement. Computers of the era had very small amounts of memory; in modern terms

16940-546: The initial releases of the machines and a licensed Microsoft version introduced later as interest in the platforms increased. Microsoft ported its interpreter to the MOS 6502 , which quickly became one of the most popular microprocessors of the 8-bit era. When new microcomputers began to appear, such as the Commodore PET , their manufacturers licensed a Microsoft BASIC, customized to the hardware capabilities. By 1978, MS BASIC

17094-557: The language. How to design and implement a stripped-down version of an interpreter for the BASIC language was covered in articles by Allison in the first three quarterly issues of the People's Computer Company newsletter published in 1975 and implementations with source code published in Dr. Dobb's Journal of Tiny BASIC Calisthenics & Orthodontia: Running Light Without Overbyte . This led to

17248-440: The last version of the operating system; set to be released in the third quarter of 2021. It was released to the general public on October 5, 2021. In September 2021, it was announced that the company had acquired Takelessons, an online platform that connects students and tutors in numerous subjects. The acquisition positioned Microsoft to grow its presence in the market of providing online education to large numbers of people. In

17402-505: The late 1960s, DEC salesmen, especially in the educational sales department, found that their potential customers were not interested in FOCAL and were looking elsewhere for their systems. This prompted David H. Ahl to hire a programmer to produce a BASIC for the PDP-8 and other DEC machines. Within the year, all interest in alternatives like JOSS and FOCAL had disappeared. The introduction of

17556-525: The merger of its PC and Xbox divisions, with Phil Spencer announcing that Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps would be the focus for Microsoft's gaming in the future. On January 24, 2017, Microsoft showcased Intune for Education at the BETT 2017 education technology conference in London . Intune for Education is a new cloud-based application and device management service for the education sector. In May 2016,

17710-487: The metaverse". Microsoft also named Phil Spencer , head of the Xbox brand since 2014, the inaugural CEO of the newly established Microsoft Gaming division, which now houses the Xbox operations team and the three publishers in the company's portfolio (Xbox Game Studios, ZeniMax Media, Activision Blizzard). Microsoft has not released statements regarding Activision's recent legal controversies regarding employee abuse, but reports have alleged that Activision CEO Bobby Kotick ,

17864-400: The microcomputers of the day. In 1972, HP introduced the HP 9830A programmable desktop calculator with a BASIC Plus interpreter in read-only memory (ROM). In June 1974, Alfred Weaver, Michael Tindall, and Ronald Danielson of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign proved it was possible to produce "A BASIC Language Interpreter for the Intel 8008 Microprocessor," in their paper of

18018-602: The mid-1980s, followed by Windows. The company's 1986 initial public offering (IPO) and subsequent rise in its share price created three billionaires and an estimated 12,000 millionaires among Microsoft employees. Since the 1990s, it has increasingly diversified from the operating system market. Steve Ballmer replaced Gates as CEO in 2000 which would see the then-largest of Microsoft's corporate acquisitions in Skype Technologies in 2011, and an increased focus on hardware that led to its first in-house PC line,

18172-497: The minicomputer's CPU with one integrated microprocessor chip . In 1973, the French Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) was looking for a computer able to measure agricultural hygrometry . To answer this request, a team of French engineers of the computer technology company R2E, led by its Head of Development, François Gernelle , created the first available microprocessor-based microcomputer,

18326-452: The name "Micro-Soft", short for micro-computer software. In August 1977, the company formed an agreement with ASCII Magazine in Japan, resulting in its first international office of ASCII Microsoft . Microsoft moved its headquarters to Bellevue, Washington , in January 1979. Microsoft entered the operating system (OS) business in 1980 with its own version of Unix called Xenix , but it

18480-468: The parts of the computer system. The SOL-20 had built-in EPROM software which eliminated the need for rows of switches and lights. The MITS Altair just mentioned played an instrumental role in sparking significant hobbyist interest, which itself eventually led to the founding and success of many well-known personal computer hardware and software companies, such as Microsoft and Apple Computer . Although

18634-444: The primary language and interface to systems had largely disappeared by the mid-1980s. BASIC helped jumpstart the time-sharing era, became mainstream in the microcomputer era, then faded to become just another application in the DOS and GUI era, and today survives in a few niches related to game development, retrocomputing, and teaching. First implemented as a compile-and-go system rather than an interpreter, BASIC emerged as part of

18788-699: The process fall under the Azure Machine Learning and the Azure IoT Hub platforms. In September 2018, Microsoft discontinued Skype Classic . On October 10, 2018, Microsoft joined the Open Invention Network community despite holding more than 60,000 patents. In November 2018, Microsoft agreed to supply 100,000 Microsoft HoloLens headsets to the United States military in order to "increase lethality by enhancing

18942-472: The program onto an Altair and saw a prompt asking for the system's memory size did he know that the interpreter worked on the Altair hardware. Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington . Founded in 1975, the company became highly influential in the rise of personal computers through software like Windows , and

19096-521: The release of Windows Phone , Microsoft undertook a gradual rebranding of its product range throughout 2011 and 2012, with the corporation's logos, products, services, and websites adopting the principles and concepts of the Metro design language . Microsoft unveiled Windows 8 , an operating system designed to power both personal computers and tablet computers , in Taipei in June 2011. A developer preview

19250-591: The release of the IBM PC in August 1981. IBM had copyrighted the IBM PC BIOS , so other companies had to reverse engineer it for non-IBM hardware to run as IBM PC compatibles , but no such restriction applied to the operating systems. Microsoft eventually became the leading PC operating systems vendor. The company expanded into new markets with the release of the Microsoft Mouse in 1983, as well as with

19404-507: The role of CFO. On February 4, 2014, Steve Ballmer stepped down as CEO of Microsoft and was succeeded by Satya Nadella , who previously led Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise division. On the same day, John W. Thompson took on the role of chairman, in place of Bill Gates, who continued to participate as a technology advisor. Thompson became the second chairman in Microsoft's history. On April 25, 2014, Microsoft acquired Nokia Devices and Services for $ 7.2 billion. This new subsidiary

19558-407: The same month, Microsoft acquired Australia-based video editing software company Clipchamp . In October 2021, Microsoft announced that it began rolling out end-to-end encryption (E2EE) support for Microsoft Teams calls in order to secure business communication while using video conferencing software. Users can ensure that their calls are encrypted and can utilize a security code that both parties on

19712-927: The same month, Microsoft announced the open source implementation of Windows Forms and the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) which will allow for further movement of the company toward the transparent release of key frameworks used in developing Windows desktop applications and software. December also saw the company discontinue the Microsoft Edge project in favor of Chromium backends for their browsers. On February 20, 2019, Microsoft Corp said it will offer its cyber security service AccountGuard to 12 new markets in Europe including Germany, France and Spain, to close security gaps and protect customers in political space from hacking. In February 2019, hundreds of Microsoft employees protested

19866-461: The same name, though their application was deployed to an 8008 simulator for the IBM 360/75 and required 16 KB. In January 1975, the Altair 8800 was announced and sparked the microcomputer revolution. One of the first microcomputer versions of BASIC was co-written by Gates, Allen, and Monte Davidoff for their newly formed company, Micro-Soft. This was released by MITS in punch tape format for

20020-467: The team finished the Web browser, and instead were included in the Windows 95 Plus! pack. Backed by a high-profile marketing campaign and what The New York Times called "the splashiest, most frenzied, most expensive introduction of a computer product in the industry's history," Windows 95 quickly became a success. Branching out into new markets in 1996, Microsoft and General Electric 's NBC unit created

20174-400: The term " personal computer " or "PC", which specifies a computer that has been designed to be used by one individual at a time, a term first coined in 1959. IBM first promoted the term "personal computer" to differentiate the IBM PC from CP/M -based microcomputers likewise targeted at the small-business market, and also IBM's own mainframes and minicomputers. However, following its release,

20328-403: The user ran the program, the editor exited and ran the compiler, which read that file and produced the executable code, and then finally the compiler would exit and run the resulting program. Splitting the task up in this fashion reduced the amount of memory needed by any one of the parts of the overall BASIC system; at any given time, only the editor, compiler, or runtime had to be loaded, the rest

20482-407: The user. On September 21, 2020, Microsoft announced its intent to acquire video game company ZeniMax Media , the parent company of Bethesda Softworks , for about $ 7.5 billion, with the deal expected to occur in the second half of 2021 fiscal year. On March 9, 2021, the acquisition was finalized and ZeniMax Media became part of Microsoft's Xbox Game Studios division. The total price of the deal

20636-658: The year 2000, after its fourth-quarter report raised concerns among investors on the poor showings of both Windows 8 and the Surface tablet. Microsoft suffered a loss of more than US$ 32 billion. In line with the maturing PC business, in July 2013, Microsoft announced that it would reorganize the business into four new business divisions, namely Operating systems, Apps, Cloud, and Devices. All previous divisions will be dissolved into new divisions without any workforce cuts. On September 3, 2013, Microsoft agreed to buy Nokia 's mobile unit for $ 7 billion, following Amy Hood taking

20790-560: Was Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), the leading minicomputer vendor. They had released a new language known as FOCAL , based on the earlier JOSS developed on a DEC machine at the Stanford Research Institute in the early 1960s. JOSS was similar to BASIC in many respects, and FOCAL was a version designed to run in very small memory systems, notably the PDP-8 , which often shipped with 4 KB of main memory . By

20944-542: Was MS-DOS that solidified the company's dominance. IBM awarded a contract to Microsoft in November 1980 to provide a version of the CP/M OS to be used in the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC). For this deal, Microsoft purchased a CP/M clone called 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products which it branded as MS-DOS, although IBM rebranded it to IBM PC DOS . Microsoft retained ownership of MS-DOS following

21098-438: Was $ 8.1 billion. On September 22, 2020, Microsoft announced that it had an exclusive license to use OpenAI 's GPT-3 artificial intelligence language generator. The previous version of GPT-3 , called GPT-2 , made headlines for being "too dangerous to release" and had numerous capabilities, including designing websites, prescribing medication, answering questions, and penning articles. On November 10, 2020, Microsoft released

21252-600: Was Apple's first software product. After the MITS Altair 8800 , microcomputers were expected to ship bundled with BASIC interpreters of their own (e.g., the Apple II , which had multiple implementations of BASIC). A backlash against the price of Microsoft's Altair BASIC also led to early collaborative software development, for Tiny BASIC implementations in general and Palo Alto Tiny BASIC specifically. BASIC interpreters fell from use as computers grew in power and their associated programs grew too long for typing them in to be

21406-448: Was a de facto standard and practically every home computer of the 1980s included it in ROM . In 1980, as part of a larger licensing deal that included other languages and PC DOS , IBM rejected an overture from Atari and instead licensed MS-BASIC over its own implementation, eventually releasing four versions of IBM BASIC , each much larger than prior interpreters (for instance, Cartridge BASIC took 40 KB). Don Estridge , leader of

21560-571: Was a fully self-contained executable and did not need the Cassette BASIC ROM found in the original IBM PC . According to Mark Jones Lorenzo, given the scope of the language, "GW-BASIC is arguably the ne plus ultra of Microsoft's family of line-numbered BASICs stretching back to the Altair--and perhaps even of line-numbered BASIC in general." With the release of MS-DOS 5.0, GW-BASIC's place was taken by QBasic . MacBASIC featured

21714-493: Was a striking exception, bearing a modern design based on a monitor, keyboard, and tape and disk drives). Of the early "box of switches"-type microcomputers, the MITS Altair 8800 (1975) was arguably the most famous. Most of these simple, early microcomputers were sold as electronic kits —bags full of loose components which the buyer had to solder together before the system could be used. The period from about 1971 to 1976

21868-535: Was based on LSI chips with an Intel 8008 as peripheral controller (keyboard, monitor and printer), before adopting the Zilog Z80 as main processor. In late 1972, a Sacramento State University team led by Bill Pentz built the Sac State 8008 computer, able to handle thousands of patients' medical records. The Sac State 8008 was designed with the Intel 8008. It had a full set of hardware and software components :

22022-495: Was common during the 1970s and 1980s, but has since fallen out of common usage. The term microcomputer came into popular use after the introduction of the minicomputer , although Isaac Asimov used the term in his short story " The Dying Night " as early as 1956 (published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in July that year). Most notably, the microcomputer replaced the many separate components that made up

22176-468: Was completed in March 2022. In 2021, in part due to the strong quarterly earnings spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic , Microsoft's valuation came to nearly $ 2 trillion. The increased necessity for remote work and distance education drove demand for cloud computing and grew the company's gaming sales. On June 24, 2021, Microsoft announced Windows 11 during a Livestream. The announcement came with confusion after Microsoft announced Windows 10 would be

22330-474: Was easier to learn and use than raw machine language, became a standard feature. These features were already common in minicomputers , with which many hobbyists and early produces were familiar. In 1979, the launch of the VisiCalc spreadsheet (initially for the Apple II ) first turned the microcomputer from a hobby for computer enthusiasts into a business tool. After the 1981 release by IBM of its IBM PC ,

22484-656: Was finishing Cromemco 16K Structured BASIC for the Z80 -based Cromemco S-100 bus machines. Paul Laughton and Kathleen O'Brien then created Atari BASIC as essentially a pared-down version of Cromemco BASIC ported to the 6502. In 1979, Warren Robinett developed the BASIC Programming cartridge for Atari, Inc. , even though it only supported programs with 9 lines of code (64 characters in total). Also in 1979, Texas Instruments released TI BASIC with its TI-99/4 , which would sell nearly 3 million systems when revamped as

22638-399: Was on storage. While mainframes had small amounts of memory, minicomputers had even smaller amounts: 4 and 8 KB systems were typical in the 1960s. But far more importantly, minicomputers tended to lack any form of high-performance storage; most early designs used punch tape as a primary storage system, and magnetic tape systems were for the high end of the market. In this environment,

22792-577: Was published in the September 1975 issue of the People's Computer Company (PCC) newsletter. The grammar is listed below in Backus–Naur form . In the listing, an asterisk (" * ") denotes zero or more of the object to its left — except for the first asterisk in the definition of " term ", which is the multiplication operator; parentheses group objects; and an epsilon (" ε ") signifies the empty set. As

22946-429: Was released in 1971. Like the Datapoint 2200, it used small-scale integrated transistor–transistor logic instead of a microprocessor. It was marketed as an educational and hobbyist tool, but it was not a commercial success; production ceased shortly after introduction. In late 1972, a French team headed by François Gernelle within a small company, Réalisations & Etudes Electroniques (R2E), developed and patented

23100-693: Was released on September 13, which was subsequently replaced by a consumer preview on February 29, 2012, and released to the public in May. The Surface was unveiled on June 18, becoming the first computer in the company's history to have its hardware made by Microsoft. On June 25, Microsoft paid US$ 1.2 billion to buy the social network Yammer . On July 31, they launched the Outlook.com webmail service to compete with Gmail . On September 4, 2012, Microsoft released Windows Server 2012 . In July 2012, Microsoft sold its 50% stake in MSNBC, which it had run as

23254-535: Was released, with its server sibling, Windows Server 2016 , released in September 2016. In Q1 2015, Microsoft was the third-largest maker of mobile phones , selling 33 million units (7.2% of all). While a large majority (at least 75%) of them do not run any version of Windows Phone — those other phones are not categorized as smartphones by Gartner – in the same timeframe 8 million Windows smartphones (2.5% of all smartphones) were made by all manufacturers (mostly Microsoft). Microsoft's share of

23408-425: Was renamed Microsoft Mobile Oy. On September 15, 2014, Microsoft acquired the video game development company Mojang , best known for Minecraft , for $ 2.5 billion. On June 8, 2017, Microsoft acquired Hexadite , an Israeli security firm, for $ 100 million. On January 21, 2015, Microsoft announced the release of their first Interactive whiteboard , Microsoft Surface Hub . On July 29, 2015, Windows 10

23562-590: Was reported that Microsoft was in talks to acquire TikTok after the Trump administration ordered ByteDance to divest ownership of the application to the U.S. On August 3, 2020, after speculation on the deal, Donald Trump stated that Microsoft could buy the application, however, it should be completed by September 15, 2020, and that the United States Department of the Treasury should receive

23716-752: Was used to develop proprietary in-house applications as well as published applications. In 1993, Microsoft released Visual Basic for Applications , a scripting language for Microsoft Office applications, which supersedes and expands on the abilities of earlier application-specific macro programming languages such as Word's WordBASIC (which had been introduced in 1989). In 1996, Microsoft released VBScript as an alternative to JavaScript for adding interactive client-side functionality to web pages viewed with Internet Explorer . In 1999, Benoît Minisini released Gambas as an alternative for Visual Basic developers who had decided to migrate to Linux . In 2000, Lee Bamber and Richard Vanner released DarkBASIC ,

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