Altair BASIC

	The title page of the assembly language code that produced Altair BASIC
Original author(s)	Micro-Soft
Developer(s)	Bill Gates; Paul Allen; Monte Davidoff;
Initial release	2.0 (4K and 8K editions) July 1, 1975
Stable release	5.0 / 14 July 1978
Platform	Altair 8800
Type	Microsoft BASIC

Altair BASIC is a discontinued interpreter for the BASIC programming language that ran on the MITS Altair 8800 and subsequent S-100 bus computers. It was Microsoft's first product (as Micro-Soft), distributed by MITS under a contract. Altair BASIC was the start of the Microsoft BASIC product range.

^ Raiders of the Lost Altair BASIC Source Code, Andrew Orlowski, 13 May 2001, The Register
^ Altair 8800 BASIC Reference_Manual 1975, Page 3 of PDF, ...and the joint authors of the ALTAIR BASIC interpreter, Bill Gates, Paul Allen and Monte Davidoff, will be glad to assist you.
^ Microsoft Fast Facts: 1975, Posted May 9, 2000, Bill Gates and Paul Allen complete BASIC and license it to their first customer, MITS of Albuquerque, N.M., the manufacturer of the Altair 8800 personal computer. This is the first computer language program written for a personal computer., Gates and Allen’s BASIC officially ships as version 2.0 in both 4K and 8K editions.
^ microsoft's timeline from 1975 - 1990 Archived 2008-05-14 at the Wayback Machine, July 1, Bill Gates' and Paul Allen's BASIC officially ships as version 2.0 in both 4K and 8K editions.
^ Computer_Notes 1975 01 05, Page 14, ALTAIR BASIC, CLAIM: Not just anybody's BASIC, FACT: Not just anybody's BASIC, BY: KEITH BRITTON, ROBERT MULLEN, Altair BASIC version 2.0 had a serious problem in that a jump out of a FOR.... NEXT loop left garbage on the stack. . Do this too often and the stack would grow relentlessly down from high memory until it ate the program. This has been fixed in version 3.0, according to Paul Allen
^ Computer_Notes 1975 01 05, Page 15, Advert: Altair BASIC]