The Other BASIC
Studying computer science was the Navy’s idea.
–Gordon Eubanks, software pioneer
One operating system—Kildall’s CP/M—would dominate the early years of the personal-computer industry. By comparison, the relative ease of creating new and different BASIC capabilities led to competition between two higher-level languages. One of those languages was Gates and Allen’s. The other was developed by a student of Kildall’s.
The Nuclear Engineer
In 1976, a young nuclear engineer named Gordon Eubanks had almost finished his US Navy service. As a civilian, he had logged nine months of experience with IBM as a systems engineer. The Navy offered him a scholarship to take a master’s degree in computer science at the Naval Postgraduate School in Pacific Grove, California. Why not? he thought. It sounded like a good deal.
Attending class was a tamer experience than most things that initially sounded enticing to Eubanks. His thick glasses and soft-spoken manner belied a real love of adventure. Eubanks thoroughly enjoyed his work on a nuclear-powered, fast-attack Navy submarine. His friend, software designer Alan Cooper, summed it up: “Gordon thrives on tension.”
Figure 40. Gordon Eubanks Eubanks’s master’s thesis under Gary Kildall became one of the early industry’s standard programming languages.
(Courtesy of Digital Research)
Gordon also liked to work hard. When he arrived at the Naval Postgraduate School, he soon heard about a professor named Gary Kildall who was teaching compiler theory. Everybody said Kildall was the toughest instructor, so maybe he’d learn something, Eubanks thought. For Eubanks, the hard work in Kildall’s class paid off. He became interested in microcomputers and spent a lot of time in the lab at the back of the classroom, working with the computer Kildall received for his work at Intel. When Eubanks approached his professor for a thesis idea, Kildall suggested that he expand and refine a BASIC interpreter Kildall had begun.
The BASIC that emerged from Eubanks’s work, called BASIC-E, differed from the Microsoft BASIC in one important way. Whereas the Microsoft version was interpreted—statements were translated directly into machine code—the Eubanks BASIC was a pseudocompiled language. This means that programs written in BASIC-E were translated into an intermediate code, which was then translated by another program into machine code. The same general idea was being tried in a BASIC compiler under development at Ohio State University.
Each approach had its merits, but BASIC-E had one critical advantage. Because its programs could be sold in the intermediate code version, which was not human-readable, the purchaser would be able to use the program but could not modify it or steal the programming ideas it incorporated. Therefore, software developers could write programs in BASIC-E and sell them without fearing that their ideas would be lifted. With a pseudocompiled BASIC, it now made sense to start selling software.
As far as Eubanks was concerned, the BASIC-E was solely an academic project. He placed his BASIC-E in the public domain and returned to the Navy for a new assignment. But before he did, he had two important meetings.
The first was with two young programmers, Alan Cooper and Keith Parsons, who realized there was money to be made writing personal-computer software. They determined to start an application-software company and, as they put it, “make $50,000 a year.” They wanted his BASIC-E, so Eubanks gave them a copy of his source code and never expected to see them again.
His second meeting was with IMSAI.
Business Software
Goaded on by Glen Ewing, another ex-student of the Naval Postgraduate School, Eubanks visited IMSAI to find out if the young microcomputer company might be interested in his BASIC. IMSAI wasn’t (at least not at first), but Eubanks wasn’t particularly disappointed. Sometime later, Eubanks received a telegram from IMSAI software director Rob Barnaby requesting a meeting. Soon after that, in early 1977, Eubanks found himself negotiating a contract with IMSAI’s director of marketing, Seymour Rubinstein, to develop a BASIC for the company’s 8080 microcomputer. Rubinstein gave the young programmer no quarter in the negotiations. Ultimately, Eubanks agreed to develop the BASIC and give IMSAI unlimited distribution rights to it in exchange for an IMSAI computer and some other equipment. The Navy engineer did retain ownership rights to his program.
The trade seemed more than fair to Eubanks. This was his first software deal and he was very green. As Alan Cooper remarked, “Gordon was saying, ‘Oh! They’re giving me a printer too!’” Eubanks did aspire to earning something more substantial than a printer—he dreamed of making $10,000 on his BASIC so that he could buy a house in Hawaii.
Figure 41. Alan Cooper Seen here in 1970, Cooper was instrumental in bringing business software to personal computers. (Courtesy of Mr. Snoid)
In April 1977, the first West Coast Computer Faire was taking place in San Francisco. Eubanks demonstrated his BASIC-E in a booth he shared with his former professor, Gary Kildall. Alan Cooper and Keith Parsons also showed up and reintroduced themselves to Eubanks. They explained that they had made some modifications in his BASIC and had begun developing some business-application software. Eubanks asked the young programmers if they had suggestions for his IMSAI project. Soon after that, the three of them decided to work together. As Eubanks refined the BASIC and Rob Barnaby, a demanding and meticulous taskmaster, tested it, Cooper and Parsons began writing General Ledger software under the business name Structured Systems Group, perhaps the first serious business software for a microcomputer.
The development of Eubanks’s BASIC was a late-night crash project like the Microsoft BASIC had been. Cooper and Parsons would drive to Cooper’s place in Vallejo, California, and sit until 3 A.M. drinking Cokes, poring over listings, and trying to decide which statements to put in the language. Like Gates and Allen had done, Eubanks determined the contents of the BASIC primarily by using his own good judgment. Selections were sometimes less than scientifically based. Sequestered in the Vallejo house, staring at code, Alan Cooper would suddenly suggest, “Why don’t you put a WHILE loop in?” referring to a frequently used programming statement. Eubanks would answer, “Sounds good to me,” and in the statement would go.
The long nights paid off. The result for Eubanks was CBASIC, which later made it possible for him to found his own company, Compiler Systems. Cooper and Parsons’s Structured Systems Group became his first distributor. But Eubanks wasn’t sure how much to ask for his BASIC. Cooper and Parsons suggested $150; Kildall suggested $90, the price at which CP/M first sold. Eubanks roughly split the difference and charged $100.
They needed to develop packaging and documentation for the product. Cooper and Eubanks wrote the manual and ordered 500 copies from a printer. They immediately got an order for 400 copies and they had to print another batch. They knew they were on their way. As for Gordon Eubanks, he got his house in Hawaii. In fact, he had underestimated the amount of money he would make on CBASIC, almost to the same degree that he underestimated the cost of houses in Hawaii.
A software industry was just starting to be built, but some of the foundation bricks had already been laid. Another brick was placed independently of either BASIC or CP/M.