18 Jun
2025
18 Jun
'25
1:56 p.m.
A few weeks ago this question was raised:
On 2025 May 6, at 11:20 PM, Steve Lewis via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
Anyway, it leads to a question of what was the first
boot-to-BASIC system?
The first to come to mind was the HP-9830, it was mentioned but seemingly dismissed:
And tentatively I'm thinking that might have been
the Wang 2200 (but I've
no idea what the "lineage" of the Wang 2200 BASIC was). Yes, yes, there
was the HP9830 (if the BASIC ROM cartridge was inserted) - sales of both
systems seemed to have started really in ’74.
To my awareness, the 9830 was the first boot-to-BASIC-from-ROM-at-power-on machine, or
‘BASIC appliance’. Available/announced late 1972.
(It didn’t need a 'BASIC ROM cartridge' to be inserted - BASIC in ROM was built-in
as part of the standard out-of-the-box system. Optional ROM cartridges could be
plugged-in to extend the built-in BASIC.)
However, there was a much-earlier system: As early as mid-1968 HP was marketing
single-user HP BASIC for the HP-2116 (or 2115, 2114). (This was distinct from HP-2000
time-shared BASIC). It didn’t automatically boot, but with 3 button-pushes you could be
in the full BASIC environment (“READY”) in less than 2 seconds from power-on. No
(re-)loading required, nor disk or tape drives, nor separate OS or executive. This was,
of course, thanks to the non-volatility of core.
This replay is late because I had to get around to conforming that the above actually
works, that is, you could repeatedly reboot the prior-loaded interpreter across many power
cycles - it didn’t alter anything after boot that would necessitate re-loading.