I'm manually transcribing the AltairBASIC source, ten lines a day starting today • Hacker News Board

Re: I'm manually transcribing the AltairBASIC source, ten lines a day starting today

#21

Post by ralferoo » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 1:47 PM UTC

LuciOfStars wrote: post #2

No AI or OCR here, just an idiot with too much free time. After seeing that the AltaBASIC source posted was a scan of paper tape , I thought having it in a digital document proper would be good for preservation and novelty's sake. I've never written Assembly, and I'm not a typography expert! Feel free to point and laugh at any silly mistakes. Let's see how many days it takes!

If you've spent 7 days so far and got as far as "F3", I wondering if this is actually some kind of elaborate troll. At the rate of one byte per week, you might finish transcribing the 4K ROM within 8 decades.

Re: I'm manually transcribing the AltairBASIC source, ten lines a day starting today

#22

Post by aap_ » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 1:54 PM UTC

Unfortunately we don't seem to have the MCS8080 macros to assemble this in the original way. Hopefully they will turn up eventually

Re: I'm manually transcribing the AltairBASIC source, ten lines a day starting today

#23

Post by Y_Y » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 1:57 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #9

Please read Bill Gates's Letter to Hobbyists and don't do this. He's not going to be happy that people are ripping off his Altair BASIC and not giving him any money. What you're doing is just not fair to him.

Original letter: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Bill_Gat...

Gates is truly the Thomas Midgley Jr. of software.

Re: I'm manually transcribing the AltairBASIC source, ten lines a day starting today

#24

Post by klelatti » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 2:32 PM UTC

Am I alone in thinking that it's revealing that Gates himself hasn't released this as open source? I'm not sure how that would work as presumably the copyright rests with MS and not Gates but I'm sure that he could have found a way.

Re: I'm manually transcribing the AltairBASIC source, ten lines a day starting today

#25

Post by hsnewman » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 2:54 PM UTC

Gates and Allen used (stole computer time) at Harvard's PDP-10 and other computer resources in developing this proprietary code.

Re: I'm manually transcribing the AltairBASIC source, ten lines a day starting today

#26

Post by ta988 » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 3:10 PM UTC

johndoe0815 wrote: post #4

I don’t want to spoil your efforts, but I think the source is already online: https://github.com/option8/Altair-BASIC

This would be particularly useful to reverse engineer the macros.

Re: I'm manually transcribing the AltairBASIC source, ten lines a day starting today

#27

Post by Cryptoclidus » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 3:56 PM UTC

LuciOfStars wrote: post #2

No AI or OCR here, just an idiot with too much free time. After seeing that the AltaBASIC source posted was a scan of paper tape , I thought having it in a digital document proper would be good for preservation and novelty's sake. I've never written Assembly, and I'm not a typography expert! Feel free to point and laugh at any silly mistakes. Let's see how many days it takes!

I'm just impressed nobody peeled away the perforations on this printout:

https://images.gatesnotes.com/12514eb8-7b51-008e-41a9-512542...

Re: I'm manually transcribing the AltairBASIC source, ten lines a day starting today

#28

Post by johnohara » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 3:57 PM UTC

Nice to see Monte Davidoff's name included at line 69. Already the hierarchy tho'.

I picture he and Paul discussing the code he had just written when Bill walks in and asks "Are you done yet?"

Re: I'm manually transcribing the AltairBASIC source, ten lines a day starting today

#29

Post by jhallenworld » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 4:35 PM UTC

LuciOfStars wrote: post #2

No AI or OCR here, just an idiot with too much free time. After seeing that the AltaBASIC source posted was a scan of paper tape , I thought having it in a digital document proper would be good for preservation and novelty's sake. I've never written Assembly, and I'm not a typography expert! Feel free to point and laugh at any silly mistakes. Let's see how many days it takes!

I had to do this in the 80s when I made a mistake that resulted in the file being erased. The fun doesn't begin until you start debugging it.

Actually this happened twice: once, someone else's code but I had the listing. Another, my own code but no listing.

Re: I'm manually transcribing the AltairBASIC source, ten lines a day starting today

#30

Post by xunil2ycom » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 4:43 PM UTC

Cryptoclidus wrote: post #27

LuciOfStars wrote: post #2

No AI or OCR here, just an idiot with too much free time. After seeing that the AltaBASIC source posted was a scan of paper tape , I thought having it in a digital document proper would be good for preservation and novelty's sake. I've never written Assembly, and I'm not a typography expert! Feel free to point and laugh at any silly mistakes. Let's see how many days it takes!

I'm just impressed nobody peeled away the perforations on this printout: https://images.gatesnotes.com/12514eb8-7b51-008e-41a9-512542...

No kidding. That was always the first thing I did after picking up a printout.