For the United States’ largest transit agency, the debut of a controversial Manhattan vehicle toll came at a convenient time. Check out the data for yourself.

Today, we’re opening the vault—for real.

For decades, fragments and unofficial copies of Microsoft’s 6502 BASIC have circulated online, mirrored on retrocomputing sites, and preserved in museum archives. Coders have studied the code, rebuilt it, and even run it in modern systems. Today, for the first time, we’re opening the hatch and officially releasing the code under an open-source license.

Microsoft’s first products: From the Altair to the Commodore 64

Microsoft BASIC began in 1975 as the company’s very first product: a BASIC interpreter for the Intel 8080, written by Bill Gates and Paul Allen for the Altair 8800. That codebase was soon adapted to run on other 8-bit CPUs, including the MOS 6502, Motorola 6800, and 6809. You can learn more about this time and hear directly from Bill Gates on the Microsoft Learn Website’s History of Microsoft video series or by visiting Bill Gates’ blog.

The 6502 port was completed in 1976 by Bill Gates and Ric Weiland. In 1977, Commodore licensed it for a flat fee of $25,000, a deal that placed Microsoft BASIC at the heart of Commodore’s PET computers and, later, the VIC-20 and Commodore 64. That decision put Microsoft’s BASIC at the heart of Commodore’s machines and helped millions of new programmers learn by typing:

• 10 PRINT “HELLO”
• 20 GOTO 10

This is BASIC M6502 8K VER 1.1, the 6502 BASIC lineage that powered an era of home computing and formed the foundation of Commodore BASIC in the PET, VIC-20, and the legendary Commodore 64. This very source tree also contains adaptations for the Apple II (“Applesoft BASIC”), built from the same core BASIC source. The original headers still read, “BASIC M6502 8K VER 1.1 BY MICRO-SOFT”—a time capsule from 1978.

The version we are releasing here—labeled “1.1”—contains fixes to the garbage collector identified by Commodore and jointly implemented in 1978 by Commodore engineer John Feagans and Bill Gates, when Feagans traveled to Microsoft’s Bellevue offices. This is the version that shipped as the PET’s “BASIC V2.” It even contains a playful Bill Gates Easter egg, hidden in the labels STORDO and STORD0, which Gates himself confirmed in 2010.

The enduring appeal of the MOS 6502 CPU

The MOS 6502 was the CPU behind the Apple II, Commodore 8-bit series, Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System, and many more. Its simplicity, efficiency, and influence still inspire educators, hobbyists, and hardware tinkerers today.

In 2025, interest is as strong as ever. The retro-computing scene is thriving, with FPGA-based re-creations, emulator projects, and active development communities. The Commodore brand has returned with the announcement of a new FPGA-powered Commodore 64, the first official Commodore hardware in decades.

Reconstructing and preserving Microsoft BASIC

Over the years, dedicated preservationists have reconstructed build environments and verified that the historical source can still produce byte-exact ROMs. Notably, Michael Steil documented and rebuilt the original BASIC process for multiple targets. He has ported the code to assemblers like cc65, making it possible to build and run on modern systems.

This open-source release builds on that work, now with a clear, modern license. It follows Microsoft’s earlier release of GW-BASIC, which descended from the same lineage and shipped in the original IBM PC’s ROM. That code evolved into QBASIC, and later Visual Basic, which remains a supported language for Windows application development to this day.

From the blinking cursor of 1977 to FPGA builds in 2025, BASIC still fits in your hand. Now, for the first time, this influential 6502 version is truly yours to explore, modify, and share.

“Altair Basic Sign” by Swtpc6800, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The post Bringing BASIC back: Microsoft’s 6502 BASIC is now Open Source appeared first on Microsoft Open Source Blog.

We’re excited to announce the release of Dev Proxy v1.1. This update delivers critical fixes for Microsoft Graph batch request simulation, resolves authentication plugin issues, and enhances the MinimalPermissionsGuidancePlugin with new reporting capabilities.

In this version:

• Fixed Microsoft Graph batch response handling
• Resolved authentication plugin initialization issues
• Enhanced MinimalPermissionsGuidancePlugin with markdown and text reports
• Added scope filtering for permissions guidance
• Performance optimizations for MSGraphDb generation

Fixed Microsoft Graph batch response handling

We’ve addressed a critical issue where the GraphRandomErrorPlugin incorrectly returned HTTP status code 424 instead of 200 for Microsoft Graph batch requests containing failed individual requests.

What changed:

• Batch responses now correctly return HTTP 200 OK as per Microsoft Graph specifications
• Individual requests within batches maintain their proper error codes (e.g., 429 for throttling)
• Fixed exception handling that was silently swallowing errors during batch processing

This fix ensures your applications receive the correct response patterns when testing Microsoft Graph batch operations, helping you build more reliable integrations.

Resolved authentication plugin initialization issues

The AuthPlugin was experiencing initialization problems where the ‘Enabled’ property was being incorrectly overridden to ‘false’, preventing proper authentication simulation regardless of your configuration settings.

The fix:

• Removed the hardcoded ‘Enabled = false’ override in the plugin initialization
• Your authentication configuration settings are now properly respected
• Authentication simulation works correctly across all supported flows

If you’ve been experiencing authentication issues since version 0.29.0, this update will restore the expected functionality.

Enhanced MinimalPermissionsGuidancePlugin with new reporting

We’ve significantly improved the MinimalPermissionsGuidancePlugin to provide more actionable insights for your Microsoft Graph applications:

New features:

• Markdown and plain text report formats for better documentation integration
• Scope filtering capabilities to ignore specific permissions in your analysis
• Performance optimizations for faster MSGraphDb generation

These enhancements make it easier to understand and document the minimal permissions your applications actually need, helping you follow the principle of least privilege more effectively.

Dev Proxy Toolkit

Dev Proxy Toolkit is an extension that makes it easier to work with Dev Proxy from within Visual Studio Code. Alongside the new release of Dev Proxy, we’ve also released a new version of the toolkit, v1.2.0.

In this version, we’ve:

• Updated all JSON snippets to use v1.1.0 schemas
• Added new YAML snippets for Dev Proxy GitHub Actions

Checkout out the changelog for more information on changes and bug fixes.

Try it now

Download Dev Proxy v1.1.0 today and experience more accurate Microsoft Graph simulation and improved authentication testing! Thanks to Artem Azaraev for contributing to this release.

Got feedback or ideas? Join us and be part of the conversation.

The post Dev Proxy v1.1 with improved support for Microsoft Graph batching appeared first on Microsoft 365 Developer Blog.

1113. This week, we talk with linguist Lauren Gawne about her book "Gesture: A Slim Guide." We look at how different cultures gesture about abstract concepts like time and space, and how we unknowingly gesture from our left-to-right writing system. We also look at why pointing is often rude, how different cultures point in different ways, and whether animals gesture on their own.

This episode was originally a bonus episode released in June for people who support the show, the Grammarpaloozians. If you'd like to support the show, and get ad-free podcasts and bonuses right away, visit quickanddirtytips.com/bonus for more information. 

Lauren Gawne → Superlinguo

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A new release of the Microsoft build of Go including security fixes is now available for download. For more information about this release and the changes included, see the table below:

Microsoft Release	Upstream Tag
v1.25.1-1	go1.25.1 release notes
v1.24.7-1	go1.24.7 release notes

The post Go 1.25.1-1 and 1.24.7-1 Microsoft builds now available appeared first on Microsoft for Go Developers.

Nearly half of AI-generated code contains security flaws, from XSS to injection attacks. Vibe coding without expert oversight is a disaster waiting to happen. Here’s why it’s happening—and how to fix it before your startup sinks.