In the late 1970's, Hewlett-Packard developed their own version of the BASIC programming language and optimized it for measurement and data analysis. Within Hewlett Packard the language began to evolve down two seperate paths. One version was developed in Corvallis, Oregon; another out of Fort Collins, Colorado.

The Corvallis version became HP-85, HP-86/87, and was used with the HP-75 and HP-71 before eventually dying out. The Fort Collins version was designed for use with the 9816, 9826, and 9836 controllers. To distinguish between the two, the Fort Collins version quickly became known as Rocky Mountain Basic or RMB-- because Fort Collins is in the Rocky Mountains.

Versions of RMB were available for HP's Series 300 controllers and were ported to HP-UX. Eventually it even made its way to the PC - though a Measurement Coprocessor had to be added to the PC to emulate the S300.

As PC's became the predominant computers in the world and Windows the defacto default operating system, HP teamed with TransEra to produce a version of HP Basic that would run under Windows. The result was HP Basic for Windows and TransEra's HTBasic(1988).

In 1999 Hewlett-Packard spun off its Test and Measurement division - forming Agilent Technologies. HP Basic stayed with Test and Measurement and HP Basic, or Rocky Mountain Basic, is now Agilent Basic.

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