Editing Microsoft BASIC (section)

{{Short description|Programming language}}
{{Infobox programming language
| name                       = Microsoft BASIC
| year                       = 1975 (cf. [[Altair BASIC]])
| designer                   = [[Microsoft]]
| developer                  = Microsoft
| latest release version     = cf. [[Visual Basic .NET]]
| latest release date        = 2018
| implementations            =
| influenced_by              =
| influenced                 =
| typing                     =
| dialects                   =
| paradigm                   =
| logo                       =
| operating_system           =
| license                    =
| website                    =
| file_ext                   =
}}

'''Microsoft BASIC''' is the foundation [[software]] product of the [[Microsoft]] company and evolved into a line of [[BASIC interpreter]]s and [[compiler]](s) adapted for many different [[microcomputer]]s. It first appeared in 1975 as [[Altair BASIC]], which was the first version of [[BASIC]] published by Microsoft as well as the first [[high-level programming language]] available for the [[Altair 8800]] microcomputer.

During the [[home computer]] craze of the late-1970s and early-1980s, Microsoft BASIC was ported to and supplied with many home computer designs. Slight variations to add support for machine-specific functions, especially graphics, led to a profusion of related designs like [[Commodore BASIC]] and [[Atari Microsoft BASIC]].

As the early home computers gave way to newer designs like the [[IBM Personal Computer]] and [[Macintosh]], BASIC was no longer as widely used, although it retained a strong following. The release of [[Visual Basic (classic)|Visual Basic]] rebooted its popularity and it remains in wide use on [[Microsoft Windows]] platforms in its most recent incarnation, [[Visual Basic .NET]].