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Comment by sbuk | Hacker News Reader

Not angry about anything my friend, just incredulous that you seemingly cannot separate Hollywood from what is front of you. Your definitions, as demonstrated by lisper, are at best debatable.

> The other competitors in the area around that time were the C64, Apple IIc/e, Vic 20, Atari 400/800, MS Dos PCs, TI 99/4a, TRS/80. All had a form of basic.

Interesting. Where are they now? It's as if in 1984 a paradigm shift happened. /s

Also, DOS didn't ship with basic. Some vendors may have bundled it, but DOS never had it built in.

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What?

The original IBM PC came with BASICA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_BASIC#IBM_Advanced_BASIC

From 1983, MS DOS came with GW-BASIC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GW-BASIC

From 1991, GW-BASIC was replaced by QBasic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QBasic

I would say, DOS always shipped with Basic. QBasic remained included up to Windows ME (the last Windows that came with DOS).

> "Some vendors may have bundled it, but DOS never had it built in."

I'm partially incorrect. It clearly was bundled, and not as I said may have been bundled. The OP was alluding that it was built in like it was for the CBM64, ZX81 etc. Being bundled and installing it as a separate process is subtly different IMHO. But I will concede that I was wrong to say otherwise.

It's complicated, not only by the fact of BASIC being available in ROM originally, but by the fact that there were OEM versions of MS-DOS that didn't come with BASIC. The DOS that came with one's PC was rarely vanilla MS-DOS. I had a couple of PCs where the only programming tools that came in the box were EDLIN and DEBUG.

Actually, starting with MS-DOS 5, QBasic - a feature reduced version of the commercial QuickBasic - was included.

I stand corrected. Though that was in 1991, which is 7 years after the timeframe the OP is arguing about.

There was https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GW-BASIC before that, which allowed me to start programming. Edit: fixed link

I may very well be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that was a Compaq thing. I certainly don't remember BASIC coming with any version of DOS or Windows out of the box in 1984. May be later on in the decade.

Best I watch 'Pirates of Silicon Valley' to check a reliable source... /s

I wasn't sure about GW-BASIC. I remember running it on a PC that came with MS-DOS 4.0, but that came with the PC (a Laser 286) as well.

MS-DOS 5.0 was a shrink-wrapped box purchase, so I was sure it was "pure".

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