The interpreter could be extended with ROMs for features like mass storage, plotter graphics, string variables and matrix operations.
HP wanted to provide a programming language that would be friendly to the engineers and scientists who used such test equipment.
It provided operating system (OS), integrated development environment (editor and debugger), and the language interpreter.
As technology advanced, HP was able to embed RMB implementations directly in the test equipment.
Another company, TransEra of Orem, Utah, created a clone implementation of RMB, which they called "High Tech BASIC", or "HT BASIC" (now "HTBasic"), meant to run on IBM PC hardware.
Test & Measurement Systems, Inc., also known as TAMS, of Loveland, Colorado, acquired HP BASIC/WS and BASIC/UX 300 product responsibility in 1998.
TAMS licensed BASIC/UX 700 from Agilent Technologies and ported RMB to both HP-UX 11i and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
HP retained BASIC/UX 700 (E2045C, BASIC for HP-UX 10.20) until spinning off their instrument division as Agilent Technologies.