| Posted By
SVS
on 2003-07-10
 |  Where Plus4 SW is better then M$?
OK, I know there is so much to write, but please list the "best" differences, and curiosities.
My contribute:
- INSTR command (Have you never used it in XCEL???? Try a case with no occurence!)
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Posted By
Gaia
on 2003-07-10
| Re: Where Plus4 SW is better then M$?
You probably know that the Commodore BASIC (as most BASIC versions those days) was also done by Microsoft...?
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Posted By
MC
on 2003-07-10
 | Re: Where Plus4 SW is better then M$?
Yep, funny :D
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Posted By
SVS
on 2003-07-11
| Re: Where Plus4 SW is better then M$?
Yes Attila, I knew it. But it was when they're writing the only good thing: MS-DOS. And... maybe it came from CMB O.S. 
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Posted By
MC
on 2003-07-11
| Re: Where Plus4 SW is better then M$?
They didn't write the DOS, they have bought it :D
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2003-07-11
| Re: Commodore Basic by M$?
I've heard this so many times, but I'm still skeptical. What proof is there that M$ had anything to do with Commodore Basic V3.5? The authors who put their name in the ROM (Fred Bowen, J. Cooper, B. Herd, Terry Ryan, Mike I.) were NOT M$ employees. I read somewhere that Terry Ryan was responsibe for the basic. This basic implementation is full of tokens that cannot be found in any M$ product. I mean the name itself is Commodore Basic, not M$. Any hard evidence?
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Posted By
Ulysses777
on 2003-07-11
| Re: Commodore Basic by M$?
The Basic on the Commodore PET was written by Microsoft (on the early PET's, typing and entering 'WAIT6502,X' (X=0-255) would fill the screen with the text "MICROSOFT".
Commodore rewrote the MS Basic for their later machines, although the startup screen on the Commodore 128 displays the following:
COMMODORE BASIC V7.0 122365 BYTES FREE
(C)1985 COMMODORE ELECTRONICS, LTD.
(C)1977 MICROSOFT CORP.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
There's a bit of info about Basic on the Commodore machines here. 
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2003-07-11
| Re: Commodore Basic by M$?
Thanks for the link, it was a very informative read. According to that, Commodore has rewritten and changed their basic so that the licensing fee for it would not apply! That means it is their own (otherwise, if it was M$'s they would have had to pay the licensing fee). Those clever bastards I know, that's arguable... But it's definitely not a black and white case, and I think saying M$ wrote the Commodore basic is just downright incorrect. Saying M$ had something to do with it, well, that's another case
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Posted By
JamesC
on 2003-07-11
| Re: Where Plus4 SW is better then M$?
I think that Microsoft owns the acronym of "Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code" (BASIC). The arrangement with Commodore probably ran along the lines of MS providing the original code but Commodore having the right to modify to suit future products (as obviously Commodore didn't plan on using the 6502 exclusively forever; the license would have to be renegotiated for 6510, 7501, 8502, etc). Licenses usually run for a predetermined length of time (ie 5 years, 10 years, etc).
Commodore's use of the Microsoft copyright notice would indicate to me that the original license was not applicable, and a new license negotiated. The new license probably required the "(C) 1977 Microsoft" line.
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Posted By
MC
on 2003-07-12
| Re: Where Plus4 SW is better then M$?
Yes, I think the commodore basic IS definetly coded by commodore workers, but the language itself is licensed for MS. Isn't that the case?
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Posted By
JamesC
on 2003-07-12
| Re: Where Plus4 SW is better then M$?
Yes.
Another example is the LOGO language as implemented on Plus/4. The manual states:
"LOGO Programming Language (C) MIT. 6502 implementation (C) Terrapin. Plus/4 version by (a list of Commodore and Terrapin employees)."
In this case, Massachusetts Institute of Technology students developed LOGO, then they moved on to form Terrapin. Terrapin can claim copyright of LOGO on systems that they wrote after they left MIT, but the actual language (keywords, structure) is still owned by MIT. Commodore licensed LOGO for their 6502-based machines and had the right to modify as necessary to work on current and future machines.
(The LOGO Plus/4 manual mistakenly states that the LOGO Language disk cannot be CATALOGued, when in fact the 64 version came on diskette, the Plus/4 version on ROM cartridge. The Plus/4 manual is simply the 64 version manual and a simple search-and-replace done to change 64 to Plus/4.)
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