Check out Microsoft's original source code from 50 years ago that Bill Gates calls 'the coolest code' he's ever written
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- Bill Gates is taking a look back at the code that started it all.
- The Microsoft cofounder this week published the code that became the first product of the company.
- Take a look at Microsoft's origins as the company turns 50 this month.
Microsoft is turning 50 this year, and Bill Gates is looking back at how the company got its start.
The Microsoft cofounder published a blog post on Wednesday about the code that would become the company's first product, which was the Altair Basic, an interpreter that translated code into instructions that the Altair 8800 microcomputer could read.
"That code remains the coolest code I've ever written to this day," Gates wrote. "It's amazing to think about how this one piece of code led to a half-century of innovation from Microsoft. Before there was Office or Windows 95 or Xbox or AI, there was the original source code — and I still get a kick out of seeing it, even all these years later."
At the end of his post, he included a PDF of the original source code for the Altair Basic — all 157 pages of it. You can check it out here.
In his blog post, Gates noted that late Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen finished part of the code on a flight to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Microsoft was originally based. Gates shared other details on the source code, fittingly, in his memoir "Source Code," which came out in February.
Gates reflected on his childhood through his career into today in the book. He wrote that he was disinterested in school growing up, noting that his preschool teachers called him "rebellious" and said he showed a "complete lack of concern for any phase of school life."
Gates also wrote about his approach, decades later, to recruiting Steve Ballmer to Microsoft, saying he and Allen had agreed to a split of 64% and 36%, respectively, but Gates ended up giving a 4% stake to Ballmer to convince him to quit business school for Microsoft.
Gates' ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, has her own memoir, "The Next Day," out later this month.