Background
The machines that would become the Atari 8-bit family had originally been developed as second-generation games consoles intended to replace the Atari 2600. Ray Kassar, the new president of Atari, decided to challenge Apple Computer by building a home computer instead. This meant Atari needed the BASIC programming language, then the standard language for home computers.
Atari did what many of the other home computer companies did: they purchased the source code to the MOS 6502 version of Microsoft 8K BASIC, intending to port it to run on their new machines. But the name was something of a misnomer, as the 8K referred to its original size on the Intel 8080's instruction set. The lower code density of the 6502 expanded the code to about 9 kB.
Atari felt that they needed to expand the language to add better support for the specific hardware features of their computers, similar to what Apple had done with their Applesoft BASIC. This increased the size from 9K to around 11K. Atari had designed their ROM layout in 8K b/locks, and paring down the code from 11K to 8K turned out to be a significant problem. Adding to the problem was the fact that the 6502 code supplied by Microsoft was undocumented.
Six months later, they were almost ready with a shippable version of the system. But Atari had a deadline with the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) approaching and decided to ask for help.
Read more about this topic: Atari BASIC
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