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the thing you do is theft. What about the guys who re-sell Altair BASIC, aren't they making
money on hobby software? Yes, but those who have been reported to us may lose in the
end. They are the ones who give hobbyists a bad name, and should be kicked out of any
club meeting they show up at. I would appreciate letters from anyone who wants to pay up,
or has a suggestion or comment. ... Nothing would please me more than being able to hire
ten programmers and deluge the hobby market with good software."
Gates' notion ran contradictory to the common philosophy at the time that if one in-
terpreter for a language was free, then all should be, despite any enhancements contained
in an individual release. The originators of the BASIC language at Dartmouth had never
sought to commercialize it. DEC, which later added many useful extensions, had given its
interpreter away for free, as it did all software bundled with the hardware which the firm
viewed (correctly) as their profit-center. But, as Ceruzzi notes: "Gates had recognized what
[many] had not: that with the advent of cheap, personal computers, software could and
should come to the fore as the principal driving agent in computing. And only by charging
money for it - even though it had originally been free - could that happen."
Gates' idea that his BASIC and other such products should be viewed as proprietary
did not gain quick acceptance. "There is a viable alternative to the problems raised by Bill
Gates in his irate letter to computer hobbyists concerning 'ripping off software,'" wrote the
unsympathetic Jim Warren of
Dr. Dobb's
. "When software is free, or so inexpensive that
it's easier to pay for it than to duplicate it, then it won't be 'stolen.'" (Note: the price for a
4K version of BASIC was $60. An 8K version went for $745, with an additional $150 fee
for extended enhancements which required some form of storage attached to the Altair. A
version that could run on any non-Altair 8080-based system cost $500.)
Most hobbyists, meanwhile, had other concerns and interests.
Initially, the Altair provided no way to store data. Memory died as soon as the power
was shut off. In time, Roberts and his small team at MITS created a way to translate data
into audio tones which could be stored on cassettes. Subsequently, during the autumn of
1975, a small coven of Kansas City hobbyists established a standard for computer audio
tones - thereby creating a method by which programs became portable from one Altair to
another. Very soon, however, floppy disks emerged as the storage hardware of choice.
Somewhat ironically, a strong software operating system for floppies was developed -
though not widely distributed - well before others explored the more primitive audio-cas-
sette approach. It was one Gary Kildall - whom Gates would eventually salute as "one of
the original pioneers of the PC revolution" - who created the first microprocessor system
software.
While working as a math and computer science instructor at the Naval Postgraduate
School in Monterey, Kildall in 1973 developed the first high-level programming language
for microprocessors: PL/M. In that same year, he created CP/M (Control Program for Mi-
