Sneer all you want, Microsoft Basic was a reasonable achievement considering that:
1) it ran in under 4K bytes of memory on an Altair 8800. That means less than 4,096 bytes of memory. Not 4,096 Kilobytes or Megabytes. 4,096 bytes.
2) An enhanced version ran in under 8K bytes of memory. Less than 8,192 bytes. Let me repeat: less than 8,192 bytes.
When you're fitting an entire BASIC interpreter in 8,192 bytes, you're not spending a lot of effort to memoize a search result.
Bill had a lot on his plate at the time. The software started out on the Altair, but all sorts of manufacturers were soon beating the door down begging for versions for the Commodore PET, the Atari, and countless other computers.
From what I've read, Microsoft BASIC was considered too bloated for a 4K machine, plus Bill Gates wrote an open letter to hobbyists and suggested they were all pirates, so a smaller BASIC was developed called "Tiny BASIC":
"Tiny BASIC was published openly and later invented the term "copyleft" to describe this. This made it popular in the burgeoning early microcomputer market."
It did not fit in 4K on the Apple ][. PET and Atari were also 6502, like Apple, so mostly the same code. Altair and the others were 8080. So, only two interpreters. It was the same design on two instruction sets, with some simple customization per vendor. Some had a Z-80, with extra instructions available: using those made your program smaller, but slower. It is doubtful he did.
That it was so short also meant there just wasn't much to it. Bill doesn't need your unpaid defense. He didn't make his $billions from BASIC. That just gave him a customer list.
1) it ran in under 4K bytes of memory on an Altair 8800. That means less than 4,096 bytes of memory. Not 4,096 Kilobytes or Megabytes. 4,096 bytes.
2) An enhanced version ran in under 8K bytes of memory. Less than 8,192 bytes. Let me repeat: less than 8,192 bytes.
When you're fitting an entire BASIC interpreter in 8,192 bytes, you're not spending a lot of effort to memoize a search result.
Bill had a lot on his plate at the time. The software started out on the Altair, but all sorts of manufacturers were soon beating the door down begging for versions for the Commodore PET, the Atari, and countless other computers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_BASIC