Programming Windows: BASIC Inventors Take on Gates, Microsoft (Premium)
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As noted in Programming Windows: Microsoft Basic (Premium), the BASIC programming language was created in 1964 by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz, two educators at Dartmouth College who wanted a programming language that was simple enough for non-engineers and scientists to use. Then, over a decade later, Bill Gates and Paul Allen developed a BASIC implementation for the MITS Altair and cofounded Microsoft to sell that product.
As genesis stories go, it’s a good one. And for those who care about BASIC, it’s pretty impressive that Microsoft continued supporting and advancing the language well into the 21st century. I’m particularly enamored of the work that Microsoft did with Visual Basic, which I feel respected the spirit of the language by making programming accessible to a new generation of developers and enthusiasts raised on GUIs.
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