Floppydays Vintage Computing Podcast

https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays Please consider donating to keep Floppy Days going! Interview with Monte Davidoff, Developer of Altair BASIC Floating Point Welcome to Floppy Days episode 113 for April, 2022.  I am Randy Kindig, your host. I’m going to take a break this month from covering machines in order to bring you a special interview show.  Monte Davidoff worked with the very early Microsoft, while in college, when they were famously getting started by developing a BASIC for MITS and Ed Roberts for the Altair 8800.  Monte developed the floating point routines for that BASIC that they so desperately needed at the time. If you’re like me, I previously was unaware of Monte’s contributions to essentially the first BASIC developed for arguably the first personal computer. It’s interesting to hear Monte’s perspective on how he managed to get involved with Microsoft, Bill Gates, Paul Allen and the project on which he worked with them.  His recall of specifics about programming for the 8080 is pretty amazing.