Altair Basic for the 6800

In January 1978 I purchased Altair 680 Basic from Computer Kits in Berkeley CA. I paid full price, $200, I didn't want Bill Gates to go broke. If you bought a Altair 680B kit with 16 K of RAM for $685 you would get BASIC for free.

Contents of Paper Tape

Here are scans of the MITS Altair BASIC Manual

Introduction (490K PDF)

Getting Started With BASIC (990K PDF)

BASIC Language Reference (1.1M PDF)

Appendices (1.1M PDF)

The I/O for this BASIC assumes an Altair 680B monitor ROM. Here is a Listing. Source, and Load File
Paul Allen and Mark Chamberlin wrote the 680 PROM Monitor (Computer Notes, March 1976, page 9)

A version of the BASIC was sold by GRT Corporation in 1978.

To use this on a SWTPC 6800 with MP-S serial port you need the following patch. Load File

Here is a sample run. First load Basic into memory then overlay the patch. This example was on FLEX but it will work on a standalone 6800 system. BASIC starts at $0000

+++GET MITS-RAW
+++GET PATCH
+++MON
$J 0000
MEMORY SIZE? 16000
TERMINAL WIDTH? 80
WANT SIN-COS-TAN-ATN? Y

9562 BYTES FREE

MITS ALTAIR 680 BASIC VERSION 1.1 REV 3.2
COPYRIGHT 1976 BY MITS INC.

OK

PRINT 4+3
7

OK
10 FOR N=1 TO 10
20 PRINT N
30 NEXT N
LIST

10 FOR N=1 TO 10
20 PRINT N
30 NEXT N
OK
RUN
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

OK