History of Computers - BASIC
Introduction
BASIC is an acronym for Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. As the name implies, it is a simple coding language which can be learned very quickly, and it is supported on most operating systems. Now, QBASIC, a version of BASIC, is popular.[1]
Overview
BASIC was developed in 1964 by John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz at Dartmouth for mainframe timesharing (N.B. the original version is now referred to as Dartmouth BASIC as many other versions are now available). It was based on FORTRAN II and ALGOL 60. BASIC became frequently used on personal computers, such as the IBM PC, despite its initial development for mainframe timesharing. BASIC’s code is easy to read and is available in multiple languages. It also has support for audio and graphics. It now supports mathematical work, matrix arithmetic, and character strings, and is object-oriented. Some BASIC keywords include:
- LET
- Assigns a data value to a variable
- DATA
- Holds a list of values which are sequentially assigned using READ
- IF...THEN...ELSE
- Used to make decisions and comparisons
- GOTO
- Jumps to a numbered line in the program[3]
For a full list, click here.
Significance
BASIC is important to the history of computers because it was one of the first languages to optimize time sharing and was made widely available to the public, as the compiler was free. BASIC was extremely easy to learn and could be used to do many things, even make games such as Mike Mayfield’s Star Trek[4]. It continued to be relevant through the various modified forms available, such as Altair BASIC made in 1975 by Micro-Soft (now Microsoft), Visual BASIC in 1991, which added multiple capabilities, and Visual BASIC .NET, which can essentially do the same things as C# and Java but uses syntax more similar to the original BASIC language. BASIC allowed anyone to program things, and helped computers grow in popularity and function.
By Austin Schultz
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC
