Licenses To Home Computer Makers
After the initial success of Altair BASIC, Microsoft BASIC became the basis for a lucrative software licensing business, being ported to the majority of the numerous home and personal computers of the 1970s and especially the 1980s, and extended along the way. Contrary to the original Altair BASIC, most home computer BASICs were resident in ROM, and thus were available on the machines at power-on in the form of the characteristic "READY." prompt. Hence, Microsoft's and other variants of BASIC constituted a significant and visible part of the user interface of many home computers' rudimentary operating systems.
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