Knowledge of the relatively simple BASIC became widespread for a computer language, and it was implemented by a number of manufacturers, becoming fairly popular on newer minicomputers such as the DEC PDP series and the Data General Nova. The BASIC language was also central to the HP Time-Shared BASIC system in the late 1960s and early 1970s, where the language was implemented as an interpreter. A version was a core part of the Pick operating system from 1973 onward, where a compiler renders it into bytecode, able to be interpreted by a virtual machine.