BASIC 45th anniversary - Printable Version +- HP Forums (https://archived.hpcalc.org/museumforum) +-- Forum: HP Museum Forums (https://archived.hpcalc.org/museumforum/forum-1.html) +--- Forum: Old HP Forum Archives (https://archived.hpcalc.org/museumforum/forum-2.html) +--- Thread: BASIC 45th anniversary (/thread-150567.html) |
BASIC 45th anniversary - Don Shepherd - 05-02-2009 Yesterday was the 45th anniversary of the BASIC language. On May 1, 1964 at Dartmouth University, at 4:00 AM, Professor John Kemeny and a student programmer entered a simple program and typed RUN at the same time, and BASIC was born.
Re: BASIC 45th anniversary - Johnny Bjoern Rasmussen - 05-02-2009 My first computer was a Sinclair ZX-81. So here's my tribune to my first programming language (except from entering program lines in my TI-57, wich was before my ZX-81). Re: BASIC 45th anniversary - Namir - 05-02-2009 Don, In the mid 80s I had the opportunity to meet the parents of BASIC, John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz in their True BASIC office in Dartmouth, NH. When I met John Kemeny (who was once the dean of Dartmouth) I asked him about his experience working for Einstein. Kemeny was helping Einstein solve PDEs. He said that even in his seventies, Einstein was an incredible person. After a year of working for him, Kemeny told Einstein that the task at hand was very difficult. Must have been really tough equations to solve. I had teh chance to meet with Prof Kurtz a few times. Both founders of BASIC were very nice and very approachable.
Namir
Re: BASIC 45th anniversary - Marcus von Cube, Germany - 05-02-2009 BASIC was the first programming language I had encountered as a young student at the age of 16, 33 years ago. It was Wang BASIC running on a computer located at the school of a friend of mine. I wasn't supposed to use the computer at all, but it was so challenging that we just did it. ;) On my first attempts in programming I thought I had to use GOTO if I wanted to jump to a line below the current line and GOSUB if I wanted to jump backwards. My English was as basic as my understanding of BASIC. I think, I've made some progress by now. ;)
My contribution to the BASIC community: http://www.mvcsys.de/doc/basic_compare.html
Re: BASIC 45th anniversary - Egan Ford - 05-02-2009 Recycled 71B program: 2 OPTION BASE 0 @ DESTROY ALL @ DIM A$[79] @ L=0 @ DIM E$[435] @ N=0 Re: BASIC 45th anniversary - Don Shepherd - 05-03-2009 Dr. Kemeny, a Hungarian, died in 1992. Dr. Kurtz is still living.
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