Thomas E. Kurtz, Co-Inventor of BASIC, Dies At 96 (hackaday.com)
- Reference: 0175505895
- News link: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/24/11/20/0528224/thomas-e-kurtz-co-inventor-of-basic-dies-at-96
- Source link: https://hackaday.com/2024/11/15/basic-co-inventor-thomas-kurtz-has-passed-away/
> The origins of BASIC lie in the Dartmouth Timesharing System, like similar timesharing operating systems of the day, designed to allow the resources of a single computer to be shared across many terminals. In this case the computer was at Dartmouth College, and BASIC was designed to be a language with which software could be written by average students who perhaps didn't have a computing background. In the decade that followed it proved ideal for the new microcomputers, and few were the home computers of the era which didn't boot into some form of BASIC interpreter. Kurtz continued his work as a distinguished academic and educator until his retirement in 1993, but throughout he remained as the guiding hand of the language.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~damn_registrars
[2] https://slashdot.org/~GFS666
[3] https://computerhistory.org/blog/in-memoriam-thomas-e-kurtz-1928-2024/
[4] https://developers.slashdot.org/story/24/05/01/1751243/the-basic-programming-language-turns-60
Before I read K&R, I read K&K (Score:2)
10 REM THE GOOD OLD DAYS
20 GOTO 10
My second language (after FORTRAN on the /360) ca. 1972 on HP-2000 TSB.
Thank you and RIP (Score:2)
I first used Basic on the DTS back in '74. Connecting via a 300 baud (I think) teletype. It was great! It allowed you to write code solving problems and perform studies without being distracted having to know what was going on under the hood. Contrast that with the analog computing class I took around the same time. Solving differential equations in real time was amazing, but dealing with the circuits and scaling could be a distraction.
RIP (Score:2)
It is all ALGOL to me, but I do think BASIC was (and still is) a very useful tool in its day. There are indeed still pretty good BASIC interpreters floating around. My favourite is Liberty BASIC which is still actively maintained [1]https://www.libertybasic.com/ [libertybasic.com]
[1] https://www.libertybasic.com/
Re: (Score:2)
I learned a tiny bit of basic when I was 13 years old or so. It was cool to work with and I liked it. I'm curious how you think it might still be useful - what kinds of things are you thinking people can be doing with it? Does anybody use it for anything currently? what kinds of current-day things would Basic be best for? It would be fun to go back and putter around with it again.
Re: (Score:2)
Excel macros mostly. Though Office Script is replacing it.
Re: (Score:2)
Dude, Trek was written in BASIC! You're pissing all over my youthful memories!
Re: Unfortunately, BASIC does not die with him... (Score:2)
Thankfully, the Trek textmode game that is installed on my Debian box is written in C.
Re: Unfortunately, BASIC does not die with him... (Score:1)
"Does" not die with him? Odd choice of tense. Not a native English speaker, ja?
Re: (Score:2)
You may notice that the title of the story uses the same tense in the same context ...
Don't forget that (Score:2)
We have to thank BASIC for Microsoft. The company's first significant business was implementing BASIC on MITS Altair and any other microcomputer during the later half of the 1970s.
Re: (Score:2)
> We have to curse the living shit out of BASIC to hell and back for Microsoft
There, FTFY.
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft weren't the only ones doing it, though. And, foreshadowing the entire history of their products, it was mid at best.
This was [1]my favorite BASIC [sol20.org] of the time. Of particular note:
Multiple-line user-defined functions. Most BASICs of the time only supported DEF FN for simple, single-line algebraic expressions.
Matrix math and manipulations.
On-screen line editing, years before the Commodore PET did it.
LIST output was block-indented.
Don't snark too heavily on BASIC. It's what got tens of thousan
[1] https://www.sol20.org/manuals/extcassbasic.pdf
Dartmouth? (Score:2)
I didn't realise there was anything other than navy there. Cool. I'm surprised this came out of the uk though, but, yeah!
Ah... my childhood. (Score:3)
When I was 14 years old I had my first program published in Compute's Gazette. It was in BASIC. I can draw a direct line from that moment through my entire career into my early retirement this July. Badmouth BASIC all you like. My VIC-20, bought with money I earned delivering newspapers for eight months, shaped my life.
If I went back to code in BASIC again today I might still reflexively drop white space and let the parser chunk it up to save the bytes...
Been using BASIC my whole life (Score:3)
I've been writing and publishing sofware and apps written in BASIC since the late 80's (and tinkered with it before that on Sinclair and Atari ST machines). Multi-user accounting software with task switching on PC-XTs, share market software for Windows 98/XP, novel-writing software for anything up to and including Windows 11, Android and IOS apps, MacOS software, you name it.
In my (long) experience users don't give a damn what their software is written in as long as it's fast, effective and free of bugs. It's not about the programming language, it's all about the programmer(s) you hire in the first place.
BASICally... (Score:1)
> GOTO HEAVEN
UNDEFINED LINE ERROR
> GOTO HELL
UNDEFINED LINE ERROR
No problem! (Score:2)
10 PRINT "I'M ALIVE!"
20 GOTO 10
I expect the man to respawn very soon.
Re: (Score:2)
I was going to make a comment very similar to that. Amazing how that's pretty much everyone's first/most memorable BASIC program.
Re:No problem! (Score:4)
He didn't die, he just GOSUB without RETURN.
Re: (Score:2)
off to the great subroutine in the sky
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Sometime in 1992...
John Carmack: "Look! I wrote a new game in BASIC! It's called Wolfenstein 3D"
> 10 PRINT "Ach! Mein Leiven!"
> 20 GOTO 10
John Romero: "Lame, needs graphics"