GW-BASIC is a programming language that was developed by Microsoft Corporation in the 1980s. It was designed as a simple and easy-to-learn language for beginners who were just starting out with programming. GW-BASIC was widely used in the 1980s and 1990s for programming personal computers, particularly IBM PC compatible machines.

GW-BASIC was a variant of the original BASIC programming language, which stands for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. BASIC was first developed in the 1960s and was designed to be an easy-to-learn language for non-specialists. The language was widely used in the 1970s and 1980s, particularly on personal computers.

GW-BASIC was an improvement over earlier versions of BASIC because it included several new features that made programming easier and more powerful. For example, GW-BASIC included support for user-defined functions and subroutines, which allowed programmers to write reusable pieces of code. It also included support for structured programming constructs such as if-then-else statements and do-while loops.

One of the key features of GW-BASIC was its interactive development environment, which allowed programmers to write and test code in real-time. This made it easy to experiment with different programming techniques and to debug code quickly. GW-BASIC also included a powerful set of debugging tools, such as a trace facility and a watch facility, which allowed programmers to track the behavior of their programs in detail.

GW-BASIC was widely used in the 1980s and 1990s for programming personal computers, particularly IBM PC compatible machines. It was used for a wide range of applications, from simple games and utilities to more complex business applications. GW-BASIC was also used in many educational settings, where it was used to teach programming to students.

Although GW-BASIC is no longer widely used today, it remains an important part of the history of computing. It was one of the first programming languages that was widely available on personal computers, and it played an important role in the development of the personal computer industry. Many of the programming techniques and concepts that were developed in GW-BASIC have been carried forward into more modern programming languages, such as Python and Java.