This is why I’ve long argued that BASIC is the most consequential language in the history of computing. It’s a language for noobs, sure, but back then most everyone was a noob.

Long before the days of laptops and smartphones, Thomas E. Kurtz worked to give more students access to computers. That work helped propel generations into a new world. Kurtz has died at 96.

BASIC turns 60: Why simplicity was this programming language's blessing and its curse Since the 1960s, BASIC has introduced countless beginners to computer programming.

Thomas E. Kurtz, who translated the exhilarating power of computer science in the 1960s as the coinventor of BASIC, a programming language that replaced inscrutable numbers and glyphs with ...