It's not entirely clear, but not much point in writing a monitor for a computer you haven't even designed yet.
I assume he wrote BASIC first to make sure he knew the computer he was building would be capable of running BASIC. And also not too capable, since the goal was a cheap computer capable of running BASIC.
But, he did write a simple monitor (and burn it into PROM) before actually running BASIC. Just 256 bytes: No disassembler, just the ability to read/modify and execute hex bytes. Before Woz created the tape interface, you had to type BAISC into the monitor as hex every time you powered up the computer.
I assume he wrote BASIC first to make sure he knew the computer he was building would be capable of running BASIC. And also not too capable, since the goal was a cheap computer capable of running BASIC.
But, he did write a simple monitor (and burn it into PROM) before actually running BASIC. Just 256 bytes: No disassembler, just the ability to read/modify and execute hex bytes. Before Woz created the tape interface, you had to type BAISC into the monitor as hex every time you powered up the computer.