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Microsoft’s original source code

(www.gatesnotes.com)
617 points EvgeniyZh | 1 comments | 03 Apr 25 21:49 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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stkai ◴[03 Apr 25 22:45 UTC] No.43576376[source]▶
The source code is such a fun read (for the comments). I found some source code for GW-BASIC, and here are two of my favorites:

  ;WE COULD NOT FIT THE NUMBER INTO THE BUFFER DESPITE OUR VALIENT
  ;EFFORTS WE MUST POP ALL THE CHARACTERS BACK OFF THE STACK AND
  ;POP OFF THE BEGINNING BUFFER PRINT LOCATION AND INPUT A "%" SIGN THERE

  ;CONSTANTS FOR THE RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR FOLLOW
  ;DO NOT CHANGE THESE WITHOUT CONSULTING KNUTH VOL 2
  ;CHAPTER 3 FIRST
Edit: GW-BASIC, not QBASIC (https://github.com/microsoft/GW-BASIC)
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deathtrader666 ◴[04 Apr 25 08:17 UTC] No.43579555[source]▶
Shouldn't it be "valiant" ?
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roryirvine ◴[04 Apr 25 08:59 UTC] No.43579805[source]▶
Sure, but in those days spellcheckers were separate apps - the most popular at the time being CorrectStar from MicroPro.

They weren't integrated into programming-oriented editors, and it would have been unusual to run them against code.

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3836293648 ◴[04 Apr 25 12:30 UTC] No.43581285[source]▶
I still haven't seen anyone using a spellchecker in code outside of IntelliJ
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1. mindcrime ◴[04 Apr 25 18:51 UTC] No.43586335{4}[source]▶
Eclipse has had an integrated spell-checker, which I believe is on by default for most file types, for like approximately forever. Now maybe everybody turns it off, but I gotta imagine there are some people who like it and keep it on.