Back to BASIC: Bill Gates Shares the Code That Built Microsoft

Back in my day, we didn't have AI writing code for us or fancy drag-and-drop app builders—we had BASIC, baby. And now, thanks to Bill Gates and his nostalgia-powered blog, we can all peek behind the digital curtain and see the actual source code that started it all.

In honor of Microsoft's 50th anniversary (yes, you're officially older than Microsoft—how does that feel?), Bill Gates posted what he calls "the coolest code I've ever written." It's a 50-year-old pile of magic known as Altair BASIC—the very first product from a tiny new company that Gates and Paul Allen named Micro-Soft (with a hyphen!). This code didn't just change computing—it practically invented the personal software industry.

The best part? They pitched the software before it even existed. Two teenagers from Harvard were so hyped by a Popular Electronics cover in 1975 that they just... made it up, then locked themselves in a room coding like their lives depended on it. And it worked. The president of MITS licensed it, the company was born, and the rest is history.

If you want to see the handwritten origins of your blue screen nightmares and Windows updates, you can download the original code right now on Gates Notes.