Back to BASIC—the Most Consequential Programming Language in the History of Computing | WIRED
August 2, 2024
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. Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, BASIC sent a shock wave through teenage tech culture. Kids who were lucky or privileged enough (or both) to gain access to computers that ran BASIC—the VIC-20, the Commodore 64, janky Sinclair boxes in the UK—immediately started writing games, text adventures, chatbots, databases. In the ’90s, they became the generation that built all the internet apps and code that made cyberspace mainstream. BASIC brought coding out of the ivory towers, and thereby tilted the world on its axis.
Source: Back to BASIC—the Most Consequential Programming Language in the History of Computing | WIRED
For developers of my generation (children of the 70s and 80s) chance are BASIC was their entry into programming.
Long since derided as a toy, I imagine a non trivial chunk of the world’s code is especially backend apps in offices is still BASIC (courtesy of Microsoft’s Visual Basic).
In this personal essay, Clive Thompson pens a paean to BASIC, in his eyes “the Most Consequential Programming Language in the History of Computing”.
@conffab.com don't forget the TRS80, commodore PET, BBC micro, VZ200 all pretty much just ran basic out of the box, no OS to speak of.