Editing Integer BASIC (section)

==History==
As a senior in [[high school]], [[Steve Wozniak]]'s electronics teacher arranged for the leading students in the class to have placements at local electronics companies. Wozniak was sent to [[Sylvania Electric Products|Sylvania]] where he programmed in [[FORTRAN]] on an [[IBM 1130]].<ref>{{cite interview |first=Allan |last=Baum | interviewer=David Brock |date=18 July 2016 |title=Oral History of Allen Baum |page=12}}</ref> That same year, [[General Electric]] placed a terminal in the high school that was connected to one of their mainframes running their [[time-sharing]] BASIC service, which they were heavily promoting at the time. After being given three days of access, the students were asked to write letters on why the school should receive a terminal permanently, but their efforts were ultimately unsuccessful.{{sfn|Wozniak|2014}}

Some years later, Wozniak was working at [[Hewlett-Packard]] (HP) running simulations of chip designs and logic layout for calculators.{{sfn|Wozniak|2014}} HP made major inroads in the [[minicomputer]] market with their [[HP 2000]] series machines running a [[HP Time-Shared BASIC|custom timesharing version of BASIC]]. For approximately {{US$|long=no|100000}}, one could build up a reasonably equipped machine that could support between 16 and 32 users running BASIC programs.<ref>{{Cite magazine |url=http://hpmemoryproject.org/news/tenyears_comp/measure_page_00.htm |title= Passing the 10-year mark |magazine= MEASURE Magazine |date= October 1976 |publisher= Hewlett Packard}}</ref> While expensive, it was still a fraction of the cost of the [[mainframe computer|mainframe]] machines{{efn|An IBM 370/155 cost over {{US$|long=no|2 million}} in 1970 ({{Inflation|US|2000000|1970|fmt=eq|r=-6}}).<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.arnnet.com.au/slideshow/541873/pictures-mostly-cool-history-ibm-mainframe/ |title=The (mostly) cool history of the IBM mainframe |first=Michael |last=Cooney |website=ARN}}</ref>}} and, for heavy users, less than the timesharing services.{{efn|Tymshare charged about {{US$|long=no|10}} per hour ({{Inflation|US|10|1970|fmt=eq}}) for accessing their systems,<ref>{{cite book |title=A History of Online Information Services, 1963–1976 |first1= Charles |last1=Bourne |first2=Trudi Bellardo |last2=Hahn |page=387 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LTTvmUU8rskC&pg=PA387|isbn= 9780262261753 |date= August 2003 |publisher= MIT Press }}</ref> while smaller services could be found for about {{US$|long=no|5}}.<ref>{{cite magazine |magazine=InfoWorld |date=27 April 1981 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DT4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA7 |title=Back to BASIC |first=Tim |last=Barry |page=7}}</ref>}} HP followed this with the [[HP 9830]], a desktop-sized machine for {{US$|10000|1970|round=-3}} that also ran BASIC, which Wozniak had access to.{{sfn|Williams|Moore|1984|p=A71}}

{{Quote box |width=300px |quote=I sniffed the wind and knew that the key to making my computer good (popular) was to include a high-level language and that it had to be BASIC. |author=Steve Wozniak{{sfn|Wozniak|2014}}}}

In January 1975 the [[Altair 8800]] was announced and sparked off the [[microcomputer]] revolution. In March, Wozniak attended the first meeting of the [[Homebrew Computer Club]] and began formulating the design of his own computer. One of the most important pieces of software for the Altair, and one of the most heavily [[Copyright infringement|pirated]], was [[Altair BASIC]] from the recently formed [[Microsoft]].<ref>{{cite book |title= Understanding Online Piracy |first= Nathan |last=Fisk |page=14 |publisher= ABC-CLIO |date= 2009 |isbn= 9780313354748 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZZJxDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA14}}</ref> Wozniak concluded that his machine would have to have a BASIC of its own, which would, hopefully, be the first for the [[MOS Technology 6502]] processor. As the language needed 4&nbsp;KB RAM, he made that the minimum memory for the design.{{sfn|Wozniak|2014}}

Wozniak's references for BASIC were a copy of ''[[101 BASIC Computer Games]]'' and an HP BASIC manual.{{sfn|Wozniak|2014}} He did not know that HP's BASIC was very different from the [[BASIC-PLUS|DEC BASIC]] variety used in ''101 Games'', which was also the basis of Microsoft BASIC for the Altair. Based on these sources, Wozniak began sketching out a [[syntax (programming languages)|syntax]] chart for the language. The design initially included floating-point support, but still hoping he might publish the first BASIC on the 6502 and become "a star", he decided to abandon floating-point and write a separate integer math system to save a few weeks programming time.{{sfn|Wozniak|2014}}

Wozniak would later describe his language as "intended primarily for games and educational uses".{{sfn|Wozniak|1977}}  Referring to it throughout development as "GAME BASIC", Wozniak wrote the code by hand, translating the [[assembler code]] instructions into their [[machine code]] equivalents and then uploading the result to his computer.{{sfn|Weyhrich|2001|loc=The [Integer] BASIC, which we shipped with the first Apple II's, was never assembled &mdash; ever. There was one handwritten copy, all handwritten, all hand-assembled.}} Without any training on how to write a computer language, he used his HP calculator experience to implement a [[stack machine]] to interpret expressions. Once the basic routines were up and running, he worked on the other commands one-by-one in a modular fashion. With every visit to the Homebrew club, he demonstrated a few more features added in the last month.{{sfn|Wozniak|2014}}

{{Quote box |width=300px |quote=It was the most satisfying day of my life... I demonstrated Breakout [at Homebrew]-totally written in BASIC... After designing hardware arcade games, I knew that being able to program them in BASIC was going to change the world. |author=Steve Wozniak{{sfn|Williams|Moore|1984|p=A71}}}}

[[File:Apple 1 Advertisement Oct 1976.jpg|thumb|left | Ad for the Apple I computer noting Apple's policy of providing free or inexpensive software for its computers.]]
In early 1976 ads for its [[Apple I]] computer, [[Apple Inc]] made the claims that "our philosophy is to provide software for our machines free or at minimal cost"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://apple1.chez.com/Apple1project/Gallery/Gallery.htm|title=The Apple 1 Project}}</ref> and "yes folks, Apple BASIC is Free".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gadgetspage.com/comps-peripheral/apple-i-computer-ad.html|title=Apple I Computer Ad|date=30 November 2009 }}</ref> This was printed shortly after [[Bill Gates]]'s infamous [[Open Letter to Hobbyists]] that suggested that people were robbing him by copying versions of [[Altair BASIC]].<ref name="Computer Notes - Bunnell">{{cite journal|title=Across the Editor's Desk |journal=Computer Notes |last=Bunnell |first=David |volume=1 |issue=4 |page=2 |publisher=MITS |location=Albuquerque NM. |date=September 1975 |url=http://startup.nmnaturalhistory.org/gallery/notesViewer.php?ii=75_9&p=2 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120323162008/http://startup.nmnaturalhistory.org/gallery/notesViewer.php?ii=75_9&p=2 |archive-date=March 23, 2012 }}</ref>

Wozniak had helped [[Steve Jobs]], who worked for [[Atari]], with a redesign of [[Breakout (video game)|Breakout]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://classicgaming.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Articles.Detail&id=395|title=Classic Gaming: A Complete History of Breakout|publisher=GameSpy|access-date=April 19, 2010|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130813113450/http://classicgaming.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Articles.Detail&id=395|archive-date=August 13, 2013}}</ref> At some later point, he decided to see whether one could write the game in BASIC. He added commands to read [[Paddle (game controller)|paddle controllers]] and over a series of quick edits had a version of the game up and running. To improve its playability, he added a speaker to make clicks when the ball hit things. While showing it to Jobs, Wozniak demonstrated that he could quickly change the colors that his game used, just by altering the [[source code]]. Wozniak later wrote that he had proved that "software was much more flexible than hardware", and that he and Jobs realized that "now, anyone could create arcade games without having to design it in hardware."{{sfn|Wozniak|2014}}

Wozniak did complete a floating-point library for the 6502 and published it in the August 1976 edition of ''[[Dr. Dobb's Journal]]''.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://archive.org/details/dr_dobbs_journal_vol_01/page/n207/mode/2up |first1=Roy |last1=Raskin |first2=Steven |last2=Wozniak |title=Floating Point Routines for the 6502 |magazine=Dr. Dobb's |date=August 1976 |pages=17–19}}</ref> This library was later made part of the ROMs for the [[Apple II]].<ref>{{cite book |title= Apple II Reference Manual |date= January 1978 |publisher=Apple Computer |pages=94–95}}</ref> Wozniak began work on back-porting the floating-point code into Apple BASIC, but got sidetracked in the task of designing a [[floppy disk]] controller for what became the [[Disk II]]. [[Mike Markkula]] said the company would go to the [[Consumer Electronics Show]] in [[Las Vegas]] if the disk system was ready in time, so Wozniak and [[Randy Wigginton]] worked on it non-stop through the 1977 holidays.{{sfn|Wozniak|2018}}

When he returned to the topic of floating-point in BASIC, Jobs complained it was taking too long. Without Wozniak being aware, the company had already arranged a license with Microsoft to receive their recently completed 6502 version of the Altair code. Examining the MS code, Wozniak decided that it was easier to add graphics support to their code than add floating-point his own BASIC, as the latter required hand-patching of the original machine code while MS's was written in assembler and more easily modified. The development of Apple's BASIC ended in favor of what became [[Applesoft BASIC]]. Wozniak later noted, "My biggest disappointment was going to the awful string functions like {{code|2=basic|LEFT$(VAR, 5)}} and {{code|2=basic|MID$(VAR2,5,3)}} instead of my own".{{sfn|Wozniak|2018}}{{efn|The string handling was not "his own", but the same system used by HP BASIC.}}

When the Apple II shipped in the summer of 1977, Integer BASIC was supplied in ROM, while Applesoft BASIC shipped on cassette. This changed with the introduction of the [[Apple II Plus]] in 1979, when Applesoft was put in the ROM.{{sfn|Hertzfeld|1985}}