Thomas Kurtz, who co-invented BASIC, has passed away. I had no idea who he was, but when I read his obituary, a flood of memories rushed back about my time using BASIC and how it changed my life. In 1982 (or was it 1983?) my family bought its first computer, a TRS-80 Color Computer 2. Its operating system was Microsoft’s Color Basic, and I learned more about code and computers from this machine than from anything else.

I spent HOURS coding games from books (often to be disappointed by what they looked like versus the illustrations). It taught me fundamental things about computers, logic, and programming. I am not a programmer and have only dabbled in code throughout my life (enough to be dangerous…), but I wouldn’t be where I am without Kurtz’s invention. I’m not alone. Commenters on the Hackaday article linked below summarize the importance and role of BASIC better than I can, and it’s worth a read.

Maybe nobody has respect for BASIC nowadays, and maybe Kurtz’s passing won’t hit home quite so much. I have a mental block trying to learn languages that seem to be designed to be overcomplicated. Everything I’ve coded in the past 30 years has been in some dialect of BASIC. My favorite feature is that, without programming for years and forgetting most of what I knew, I can pick up a new dialect and start coding in a short amount of time. It’s the language closest to English. It has it’s faults but it’s certainly more than just a curiosity or 80’s 8 bit nostalgia.

User RChadwick on Hackaday article.

I feel a lot of nostalgia for the tinkering that I and others did in the 1980s; the opportunities now are exponentially greater, and it motivates me to do more.

If I were Thomas Kurtz, I’d feel pretty great about creating something that has been so foundational to so many people, even if it’s not used these days.

More reading:

• BASIC Co-Inventor Thomas Kurtz Has Passed Away – Hackaday
• Thomas E. Kurtz, a Creator of BASIC Computer Language, Dies at 96 – New York Times