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.

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Because BASIC is the first language that many computer scientists learn, it has been, for generations, a mother tongue of technologists.

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BBC Basic is still a fairly remarkable language, all these years later. It had 32-bit integers, arbitrary-length variable names, and was remarkably fast.

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.