60 years of BASIC

Happy birthday to Basic, possibly the most important programming language of all time! The Easy-to-use language that drove Apple, TRS-80, IBM, and Commodore PCs debuted in 1964.

The BASIC programming language turns 60 article says:
“Sixty years ago, on May 1, 1964, at 4 am in the morning, a quiet revolution in computing began at Dartmouth College. That’s when mathematicians John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz successfully ran the first program written in their newly developed BASIC (Beginner’s All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) programming language on the college’s General Electric GE-225 mainframe.”

Little did they know that their creation would go on to democratize computing and inspire generations of programmers over the next six decades. Prior to BASIC, programming languages like Fortran, Algol, and COBOL were used. But they were so complex that they were primarily used only by professionals. Kemeny and Kurtz saw a need for amateurs who were not dedicated computer engineers to be able to use computers as well. Their journey to create a more user-friendly language began in 1956 with Dartmouth Simplified Code (DARSIMSCO), followed by the Dartmouth Oversimplified Programming Experiment (DOPE). The lessons learned from these projects informed the development of BASIC, which started in 1963.

The original version was of BASIC created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College in 1963. The emergence of microcomputers in the mid-1970s led to the development of multiple BASIC dialects, including Microsoft BASIC in 1975. BASIC was available for almost any system of the era, and became the de facto programming language for home computer systems that emerged in the late 1970s and became popular in early 1980′s. I started my programming with BASIC in the early 1980′s.

BASIC declined in popularity in the 1990s, as more powerful microcomputers came to market and programming languages with advanced features became feasible to use and nontechnical personal computer users relied on pre-written applications.

Here are links to some online services that allow you to try BASIC programming:
http://www.quitebasic.com/
https://www.jdoodle.com/execute-freebasic-online

Sources:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/05/the-basic-programming-language-turns-60/