60 years ago, the inventors of the BASIC programming language actually achieved what they had hoped for: simple programming that is accessible to everyone. At 4:00 a.m. on May 1, 1964, the first ...

Since the 1960s, BASIC has introduced countless beginners to computer programming. Here's how the language got started, the paths it cleared for Windows and Apple, and where you can still find it ...

A brochure for the GE 210 computer from 1964. BASIC's creators used a similar computer four years later to develop the programming language. Credit: GE / Wikipedia ...

After BASIC, in the early 1970s, Niklaus Wirth developed Pascal, another language meant to solely be a tool to teach students computer programming concepts. “This language was not really developed to ...

Nowadays, "basic" has a very different and derogatory Urban Dictionary-style meaning. Fifty years ago on this very day, however, it was the name given to a new computer-programming language born ...

Once upon a time, knowing how to use a computer was virtually synonymous with knowing how to program one. And the thing that made it possible was a programming language called BASIC.

There was a time when anyone could try programming, thanks to the ubiquity of Basic. But Basic's a nonstarter these days, so what will entice a new generation?

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.