(Has anyone ever seen a Microsoft copyright notice on any Commodore
BASIC, in literature, on screen, or embedded in the code?)
The second legend is that the Jack Tramiel did never pay a cent in royalties
to Microsoft, thus upsetting the greedy Bill Gates. The story goes that Jack
bought the proprietary rights to an early Microsoft Basic, Gates agreed,
because he was unable to deliver a 6502 version of its Basic, Commodore
reworked the code and went on developing it on its own.
We know that this legend is wrong, because we know that Microsoft
was able to deliver a 6502 version of its Basic to Apple.
From the Apple2 history at
http://apple2history.org/history/ah16.html
Back in 1975 and 1976, Microsoft was producing BASIC interpreters
for nearly every microprocessor that was produced, in hopes of
licensing or selling their BASIC to those who built a computer
around that chip. In mid-1976, Microsoft's first employee, Marc
McDonald, was given the job of creating a version of BASIC that
would run on the then-new 6502 microprocessor, even though there
not yet any computers that used that processor. They became aware
of Steve Wozniak's efforts in designing his 6502 computer (the
Apple-1), and one of Microsoft's programmers called Steve Jobs to
see if he would be interested in a BASIC language for this
computer. Jobs told him that they already had a BASIC (remember
that Wozniak had been writing BASIC interpreters before he even
had a computer on which to run them), and if they needed a better
one, they could "do it themselves over the weekend".
Even without a potential customer for this product, McDonald
worked on this BASIC, using a modified 6800 microprocessor
simulator (the 6800 had an instruction set that was similar to
the 6502). For several months Microsoft had their 6502 BASIC
sitting on a shelf, unwanted and unused. But by October 1976 they
finally had a contract to put this interpreter into the new
Commodore PET computer that was being designed. This would
ultimately become the first time that BASIC was included with a
computer built into the ROM, rather than being loaded from a
paper tape, disk, or cassette. However, the contract Microsoft
had with Commodore was no good to them at that time, as far as
income was concerned; it stipulated that they would not be paid
until some time in 1977, when the computer was to be finished and
ready to ship. With income and cash reserves running dangerously
low, Microsoft was given a reprieve by none other than Apple
Computer.[12]
Apple was receiving increasing numbers of requests by users of
the Apple II for a floating point BASIC. Integer BASIC (which
Wozniak had also at one time called "Game BASIC") worked well for
many purposes, and a skilled programmer could even make use of
the floating point routines that were included in the ROM of
Integer BASIC.[15] However, the average Apple II user was not
satisfied with Integer BASIC, especially as it made them unable
to easily implement business software (where the number to the
right of the decimal point is as important as the one to left).
Wozniak tried to make modifications to his Integer BASIC to make
use of the floating point routines, but at that time he was also
hard at work on designing the Disk II interface card, and his
efforts on creating a floating point BASIC fell further and
further behind. Consequently, Apple's management decided to go
back to Microsoft and license the 6502 floating point BASIC that
had been offered to them in 1976.
In August 1977, Apple made a $10,500 payment to Microsoft for the
first half of a flat-fee license that they were able to
negiotate. Typically, Microsoft would license its BASIC on a
royalty basis; they would be paid a set fee for every copy of
BASIC that went out the door -- in this case, with every computer
that was sold. The fact that Microsoft was willing to concede and
let Apple license their 6502 BASIC on a flat-fee basis is a
reflection of the financial straits that Microsoft was under.[13]
The version Apple licensed was almost identical to the MITS
extended BASIC that Microsoft had previously written for the
Altair 8800.[4],[5] At Apple, Randy Wigginton was assigned the
job of incorporating into Microsoft's BASIC the graphics commands
that were unique to the Apple II.