Bill Gates Personal Easter Eggs in 8 Bit BASICIf you type WAIT6. Commodore PET with BASIC V2 1. MICROSOFT at the top left corner of the screen. Legendhasit Bill Gates himself inserted this easter egg after he had had an argument with Commodore founder Jack Tramiel, just in case Commodore ever tried to claim that the code wasnt from Microsoft. In this episode of Computer Archeology, we will not only examine this story, but also track down the history of Microsoft BASIC on various computers, and see see how Microsoft added a second easter egg to the TSR 8. Color Computer because they had forgotten about the first one. Stolen From Apple This whole story sounds similar to Apple embedding a Stolen From Apple icon into the Macintosh firmware in 1. ROM, in court, Steve Jobs could hit a few keys on the clone, revealing the icon and proving that not just a functional mechanism was copied but instead the whole software was copied verbatim. View and Download DIGITECH RP55 owners manual online. RP55 Guitar pdf manual download. The TRS80 Micro Computer System TRS80 later known as the Model I to distinguish it from successors is a desktop microcomputer launched in 1977 and sold by Tandy. What Is The Trs 55 Program' title='What Is The Trs 55 Program' />Altair BASICLets dig into the history of Microsofts BASIC interpreters. In 1. 97. 5, Microsoft back then still spelled Micro soft released Altair BASIC, a 4 KB BASIC interpreter for the Intel 8. MITS Altair 8. 80. An extended version BASIC 8. KB of code contained extra instructions and functions, and, most importantly, support for strings. Microsoft BASIC for the 6. What Is The Trs 55 Program' title='What Is The Trs 55 Program' />In 1. Crate And Barrel Registry Completion Program. MOS Technology launched the KIM 1, an evaluation board based around the new 6. CPU from the same company. Microsoft converted their BASIC for the Intel 8. KB version with a 3. KB system with 4. Some sources claim that, while BASIC for the 8. KB in size, Microsoft just couldnt fit BASIC 6. KB, while othersources claim there was an 8. KB version for the 6. The truth is somewhere in the middle. The BASIC ROMs of the Ohio Scientific Model 5. KIM like microcomputer kits from 1. Compukit UK1. 01 were indeed 8 KB in size, but unlike the 8. IO code that had to be added by the OEM, so these machines required an extra ROM chip containing this IO code. In 1. 97. 7, Microsoft changed the 6 digit floating point code to support 9 digits and included actual error stings instead of two character codes, while leaving everything else unchanged. A 6. 50. 2 machine with BASIC in ROM needed more than 8 KB anyway, why not make it a little bigger to add extra features. The 6 digit math code was still an assembly time option the 1. Atari Microsoft BASIC used that code. In 1. 97. 7, Ohio Scientific introduced the Model 5. Microsoft BASIC 1. ROM. Upon startup, it printed. OSI 6. 50. 2 BASIC VERSION 1. REV 3. 2. COPYRIGHT 1. BY MICROSOFT CO. In the same year, MOS started selling a tape version of 9 digit Microsoft BASIC 1. KIM 1. Its start message was. MOS TECH 6. 50. 2 BASIC V1. COPYRIGHT 1. 97. 7 BY MICROSOFT CO. F_2MI/hqdefault.jpg' alt='What Is The Trs 55 Program' title='What Is The Trs 55 Program' />Woz Integer BASICThe 1. Apple I was the first system besides the KIM to use the MOS 6. CPU, but Steve Wozniak wrote his own 4. KB BASIC interpreter instead of licensing Microsofts. An enhanced version of Woz Integer BASIC came in the ROM of the Apple II in 1. Microsoft BASIC called Apple. Soft was available as an option on tape. On the Apple II Plus 1. Apple. Soft II replaced Integer BASIC. Commodore PETCommodore had bought MOS in October 1. KIM platform into a complete computer system. They licensed Microsoft BASIC for 6. October 1. 97. 6, renamed it to Commodore BASIC, replaced the OK prompt with READY., stripped out the copyright string and shipped it in the ROMs of the first Commodore PET in 1. The Easter Egg. In 1. Commodore started shipping update ROMs with a version 2 of Commodore BASIC for existing PETs. Apart from updates in array handling, it also contained the WAIT 6. This is what the easter egg code looks like. D7. 10 2. 0 C6 D6 JSR D6. C6 fetch address and value. D7. 13 8. 6 4. 6 STX 4. D7. 15 A2 0. 0 LDX 0. D7. 17 2. 0 7. 6 0. JSR 7. 6 CHRGOT get last character. D7. 1A F0 2. 9 BEQ D7. D7. 1C 2. 0 CC D6 JSR D6. CC check for comma and fetch parameter. D7. 1F 8. 6 4. 7 STX 4. D7. 21 A0 0. 0 LDY 0. D7. 23 B1 1. 1 LDA 1. Y read from WAIT address. D7. 25 4. 5 4. 7 EOR 4. D7. 27 2. 5 4. 6 AND 4. D7. 29 F0 F8 BEQ D7. D7. 2B 6. 0 RTS back to interpreter loop. On pre V2 BASIC, the branch at D7. A just skipped the next line If there is no third parameter, dont fetch it. On V2, the line is subtly changed to make the two parameter case branch to a small patch routine. D7. 45 A5 1. 1 LDA 1. D7. 47 C9 6. 6 CMP 6. D7. 49 D0 D4 BNE D7. F no, back to original code. D7. 4B A5 1. 2 LDA 1. D7. 4D E9 1. 9 SBC 1. D7. 4F D0 CE BNE D7. F no, back to original code. D7. 51 8. 5 1. 1 STA 1. D7. 53 A8 TAY index 0. D7. 54 A9 8. 0 LDA 8. D7. 56 8. 5 1. 2 STA 1. D7. 58 A2 0. A LDX 0. A 1. 0 characters. D7. 5A BD 8. 1 E0 LDA E0. Recovery Toolbox For Rar Serial. X read character. D7. 5D 2. 9 3. F AND 3. Drum Library Vol 1 Zip File here. F throw away upper bits. D7. 5F 9. 1 1. 1 STA 1. Y store into screen RAM. D7. 61 C8 INY. D7. D0 0. 2 BNE D7. D7. E6 1. 2 INC 1. D7. CA DEX. D7. 67 D0 F1 BNE D7. A next character. D7. 69 C6 4. 6 DEC 4. D7. 6B D0 EB BNE D7. D7. 6D 6. 0 RTS back to interpreter loop. The text MICROSOFT is stored in 1. E0. 82, cleverly hidden after a table of coefficients that is used for the SIN function. E0. 63 0. 5 6 coefficients for SIN. E0. 64 8. 4 E6 1. A 2. D 1. B 2PI1. E0. 69 8. 6 2. 8 0. FB F8 2I99 E0. E 8. 7 9. 9 6. PI77 7. E0. 73 8. 7 2. 3 3. DF E1 2I55E0. 78 8. A5 5. D E7 2. 8 2I33 E0. D 8. 3 4. 9 0. F DA A2 2I 6. E0. 82 A1 5. 4 4. F 1. 3 SOFT backwards and with. E0. 87 8. F 5. 2 4. CD MICRO random upper bits. If we reverse the bytes, we get. CD 8. 9 4. 3 5. 2 8. F 1. 3 8. F 4. 6 5. A1. The easter egg code clears the upper 2 bits, resulting in. D 0. 9 0. 3 1. 2 0. F 1. 3 0. F 0. 6 1. The easter egg code does not print the characters through library routines, but instead writes the values directly into screen RAM. While BASIC used the ASCII character encoding, the Commodore character set had its own encoding, with A starting at 0. ASCII. Thus, the 1. MICROSOFT Microsofts Code Commodore engineers are known for putting easter eggs into ROM, but there would be no reason for them to encode the string MICROSOFT and hide it so well. The WAIT 6. 50. 2 easter egg did not show up in Commodore BASIC until version 2, which is in contrast to almost all sources claiming Commodore licensed Microsoft BASIC for a flat fee and never returned to Microsoft for updates, but continued improving BASIC internally. Commodore had indeed updated its source with Microsofts changes since V1. Jim Butterfield states Commodore paid Microsoft an additional fee to write a revision to the original BASIC that they had bought. Among other things, spaces in keywords were changed, zero page shifted around, and unknown to Commodore the WAIT 6. Targeting Commodore While all of Microsoft BASIC only depends on the CPU, makes no other assumptions on the hardware it runs on be it Commodore, Apple, Atari,, and does all its input and output by calling into ROM functions external to BASIC, the easter egg writes directly to screen RAM at a fixed address of 8. PET character encoding for it The easter egg has clearly been written specifically for the PET. We can only speculate on the reasons why Microsoft and possibly Bill Gates himself added the easter egg. Zip Files, Unzip Files, Compress Files and Share Files with Win. Zip. Unzip all major formats. 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