computer based on the Intel 8080 microprocessor. Gates and Allen were confident that the new microprocessor could support a computer language, and contacted MITS to say that their version of BASIC could support the Altair. Gates and Allen wrote much of their BASIC interpreter using a DEC PDP-10 minicomputer in the computer lab at Harvard (where Gates was a sophomore). Allen wrote a bootstrap loader (critical software for loading other software) on the airplane while flying to New Mexico to meet with MITS, and the demonstration of Microsoft BASIC was successful enough to win the contract with MITS for Gates and Allen ("Microsoft is Born," 1999, p. 71).
From the very beginning, Microsoft separated itself from other software developers. In those early days of microcomputers, many software developers gave away their programs, or at least did not pursue those who obtained unauthorized copies. However, Gates wrote a letter to hobbyists (early Altair owners) included in a newsletter asking them to send money if they owned an unauthorized version of Microsoft BASIC. Since that time, Microsoft has aggressively pursued those who "pirate" software, although the wide dispersal of a particular piece of software may help fledgling companies such as Microsoft gain market share in the long run. Certainly the widespread use of Microsoft BASIC encouraged companies who followed MITS in manufacturing microcomputers sought out Microsoft BASIC. By mid-1976, Microsoft had sold BASIC to General Electric, NCR and Citibank.
Microsoft ended up in arbitration with MITS over that company's decision not to sell BASIC to customers but to "bundle" it with the microcomputers they were selling. MITS' strategy was to pressure the yo
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