Tom Kurtz, who co-invented BASIC—probably the piece of software that has meant the most to me—has died at age 96. When it turned 50 ten years ago, I wrote a VERY long article about why it was so important, and I’m very grateful that he helped with it. RIP. https://time.com/69316/basic/
Nov 15, 2024, 1:29 AM@harrymccracken RIP Thomas. BASIC was an integral part of my early programming and career.
@harrymccracken we started with BASIC, all those years ago. thank you for the lovely article. may he rest in peace.
@ireneista @harrymccracken Back when I was young when you turned a computer on a BASIC interpreter just came up by default!
@beige_alert @harrymccracken we spent much of the 90s mourning that it wasn't like that anymore, and asking ourselves how the kids would learn
@harrymccracken I tried to look at QuiteBasic, but the website doesn't seem to be working. Is Nikko Strom reachable?
@sgeo @harrymccracken
@internetarchive has you covered.
https://web.archive.org/web/20100107035010/https://www.quitebasic.com/
It probably needs refurbishing.
Nov 15, 2024, 4:06 AM@harrymccracken I started with BASIC too, back in 1977. Data General AOS BASIC 1.01 or so...
The very first "basic" programming language for me wasn't even BASIC, it was Fortran. I learned BASIC a year or two later. And my very first paid programming work was done in SPITBOL, of all things.
@VulcanTourist @harrymccracken I also learned Fortran as my first programming language for a first year Physics course. At the same time I did some Cobol in a CS course. My first job required me to use APL which I first saw in my Statistics courses. The only Basic I uses was Visual Basic to automate some processes in my spreadsheets.
@harrymccracken BASIC started my IT career at the age of 14. Thanks ❤️.
@harrymccracken I always felt BASIC got a lot of hate it didn't deserve. In any steep learning curve topic, having some low rise steps really helps get people started and the concepts of BASIC were pretty easy to understand as a "recipe" for do this step then this step.
For me it was the second language I learned after FOCAL/8 but it still held a soft spot for me.
@harrymccracken Wrote Star Trek game in BASIC on 4KB TRS-80 in 1979. Loved the language, but soon got serious with 6502 assembler on Atari 800 & C on IBM PC & Unix at Bell Labs (where I was a software engineer). Great way to learn programming 🙂
@harrymccracken First language I ever programmed with.
@harrymccracken
Input line 10 "very sad"
@harrymccracken
School had phone lines to Dartmouth in 1967 & Telex terminals in math department basement.
@stevewfolds @harrymccracken
Nice. Still have my copy of Illustrating BASIC (1977).
@harrymccracken @wim_v12e Re billg. He had promised initially to Andre Warufsel and then to me the source code of his Basic 4K, but he never kept his promise.
https://gizmonaut.net/soapflakes/EXE-199711.html
Cc’ @ModernDayNTK
@harrymccracken beautiful. I just read that twice. The article, I mean, not just this post.
@harrymccracken This.
I grew up on using QBASIC in DOSBox 11 years ago.
If it weren't for QBASIC, I probably wouldn't have got into programming, and if it weren't for BASIC, QBASIC probably wouldn't have existed.
Nov 15, 2024, 7:31 PM@harrymccracken I remember saying, to people who seemed like they were missing the point of David Brin's essay, that in order to start coding on my Atari 400, all I had to do was insert a cartridge and turn it on.
@harrymccracken my earliest programming language, I wrote about that over here. https://dev.to/andypiper/classic-programming-books-available-for-free-2jg4
@harrymccracken @flargh for so many of us it was the first language we learnt. VIC-20, Extended BASIC on the TI-99/4a, Amiga Basic. My first job was supporting a legacy system in compiled QuickBASIC
@bgrinter @harrymccracken Level 1 BASIC on the TRS-80 Model 1 was my first experience with it at 8 or 9, then later at 11 or 12 delving heavily into Extended BASIC on the TI. Highly portable, was able to take what I already knew and adapt it to the new environment. It was our lingua franca.
@flargh @harrymccracken magazines would post code for popular platforms like the Spectrum or C-64, the challenge was to convert them to TI Basic.
@bgrinter @harrymccracken 99er magazine was a lifeline too.
@flargh @harrymccracken used to be really hard to get in Australia, however there was a brilliant user group TISHUG who’d import them. Their monthly meetings were looked forward to, although being in Darlinghurst we’d have to catch the train to Kings Cross - can’t believe I was allowed to do that alone at 13…
@flargh @bgrinter @harrymccracken When my father got a TRS-80, in the spring of 1978, Level II BASIC and 16KB RAM were backordered, so he got a Level I machine with 4KB which was upgraded some months later. I still wince when I think about Level I.
@harrymccracken Ah the days of writing Basic by poking out the chads on computer cards - we shall never see their like again. Vale Tom.
Nov 18, 2024, 7:02 AM@harrymccracken a little tribute
10 REM TRIBUTE TO Thomas E. Kurtz
20 year=1900
30 IF year=1928 THEN PRINT year;"Thomas is born"
40 IF year=1964 THEN PRINT year;"BASIC IS born and Dartmouth Time Sharing System"
50 IF year=2024 THEN PRINT year;"Thomas left us but BASIC FOREVER":STOP
60 year=year+1
70 GOTO 30
