As Microsoft marks its 50th anniversary, its co-founder Bill Gates shared a blog post reflecting on the company’s early days, unveiling the first-ever code that laid the foundation for the tech giant.

In his post, Gates reminisced about Altair BASIC 8800, the first programming language he and Paul Allen developed in 1975. He explained that computers do not inherently understand BASIC, so they built a BASIC interpreter, which translated code into instructions line by line as the program ran.

Gates described this code as “the coolest code I have ever written to this day.”

The vision of Gates and Allen was clear from the beginning: “A computer on every desk and in every home.” Their goal was to make computing affordable and accessible, ensuring that memory and processing power were available at minimal cost.

Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, recently visited India in March, where he met various stakeholders and also met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 19.

His meeting with PM Modi focused on India’s development vision, particularly the ‘Viksit Bharat 2047’ initiative aimed at making India a developed nation by its centenary year of Independence.

The discussions between Modi and Gates emphasised how AI and digital infrastructure can revolutionise healthcare, education, and agriculture in India.