The history of BASIC.

Essay by ChronoTrigger456Junior High, 9th gradeA, June 2005

download word file, 1 pages 5.0

BASIC Programming Language

BASIC is a computer programming language. BASIC stands for Beginner's All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. BASIC was invented in 1963 at Dartmouth College by two mathematicians named John George Kemeny and Thomas Kurtzas. They originally invented it so that they could teach computer programming to undergraduates at the University. BASIC was later used by engineers to help them with calculations.

During the 1980's and some of the 1990's, BASIC was one of the most commonly used computer-programming languages. It is also the easiest to learn. Most home computers had BASIC ported onto them. If you wanted to use a personal computer back in the day, you had to know how to program in BASIC.

In order to learn BASIC, you must have an understanding in Algebra 1. BASIC is just basically Algebra 1 with computing functions. Usually in Algebra 1, you must define a variable for a word problem using let x = ....

In BASIC, you do the same when you want to define a variable, let x =.... Some schools even taught BASIC in Algebra classes.

Paul Allen and Bill Gates, the founders of Microsoft, made BASIC popular by porting it to home computers. Microsoft mainly ported them to the Apple Macintosh in

the 70's, so if you were a computer user during that time, chances are you are a BASIC programmer, or have programmed in BASIC at one point in time.

Today, BASIC is not used quite as often, since computer software is now often pre-programmed for the end user, but BASIC is still the preferred choice for most programmers starting out. Intermediate and Advanced programmers mow use lower level languages such as c++ or ASM, since BASIC is so easy to learn, it is very limited. However it is still possible to...