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IIRC, Paul Allen wrote most of Microsoft's original BASIC interpreter... And the emulator they used to develop it.

According to Wikipedia, you recall wrong. Gates wrote the interpreter and Allen wrote the emulator:

Thanks for the correction. I really had the impression Allen had more to do with the BASIC interpreter...

The _Vanity Fair_ excerpts have Allen writing the emulator, all the other development tools, the loader, and then he wrote 25% of the interpreter itself: http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/05/paul-all...