R.I.P. Thomas Kurtz

[John Ames]

Someone on the cctalk mailing list shared this - the co-creator of
BASIC has left the building:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-14/thomas-kurtz-co-creator-of-computer-language-basic-dies-at-96

Rest in peace, sir, your contribution kickstarted more than a few of
our paths in life.

[Bob Eager]

Someone on the cctalk mailing list shared this - the co-creator of BASIC
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-14/thomas-kurtz-co-

creator-of-computer-language-basic-dies-at-96

Rest in peace, sir, your contribution kickstarted more than a few of our
paths in life.

I learned BASIC (second programming language) with the Kemeny and Kurtz
book.

[David LaRue]

Post by John Ames

Someone on the cctalk mailing list shared this - the co-creator of BASIC
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-14/thomas-kurtz-co-

creator-of-computer-language-basic-dies-at-96

Rest in peace, sir, your contribution kickstarted more than a few of our
paths in life.

I learned BASIC (second programming language) with the Kemeny and Kurtz
book.

I got interested in programming when I found a Saturday morning TV show for
a college that had an hour long show with a whiteboard computer and taught
the concepts of how to understand a hypothetical instruction set for a
small computer. It was likely for a college in the Chicago, IL, area. It
was on at 9:00AM on Saturday mornings on WGN for a while. I was barely in
school at the time and loved how simple the teacher made the hypothetical
computer do things as he taught the student how to arrange a problem into
components and assign machine instructions to accomplish a task.

Many years later my high school acquired a TTY and Modem connection to a
time share BASIC system hosted on an HP 2000/A mini. The TTY was a 110
baud with tape punch and reader. The next semester the school upgraded to
two rooms with one terminal each of 300 baud LA-36 Decwriter Terminals. I
monopolized the terminal in the math center year round for several years.

My senior year of high school a local Women-only Catholic University, Clark
College, allowed men, including students and adults to take courses. My
parents wanted me to have English courses but a friend and I opted for
taking FORTRAN 101. The teacher, forgive me I only recall her first name,
had worked with Dr. Kurtz on the team that created BASIC. She had
wonderful insights to the development of the language.

Later at Iowa State University, Ames, IA, a ccomputer engineering teacher
explained his participation of designing the first IBM/360 and its machine
language and hardware.

I really enjoy teachers that digress from a topic and explain how things
were created. There was always the student that would interupt after a few
minutes and ask: is this going to be on the test? Many of us would
encourage the teachers to continue long after the class is over. They had
so much to teach to those that would listen.

Learn all you can in your life.

A big "Thank You!" to creators and teachers everywhere that have the gift
to make their expertise relevant to the class.

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by David LaRue
Later at Iowa State University, Ames, IA, a ccomputer engineering teacher
explained his participation of designing the first IBM/360 and its machine
language and hardware.

When I was there, Dr. Atanasoff would visit periodically and speak to
the computer science club.

[Sarr Blumson]

Post by David LaRue
My senior year of high school a local Women-only Catholic University, Clark
College, allowed men, including students and adults to take courses. My
parents wanted me to have English courses but a friend and I opted for
taking FORTRAN 101. The teacher, forgive me I only recall her first name,
had worked with Dr. Kurtz on the team that created BASIC. She had
wonderful insights to the development of the language.

What was her name? I was there and I'm trying to figure out who it was. There
weren't many women around at Dartmouth in 1964.

[David LaRue]

Post by Sarr Blumson

Post by David LaRue
My senior year of high school a local Women-only Catholic University,
Clark College, allowed men, including students and adults to take
courses. My parents wanted me to have English courses but a friend and
I opted for taking FORTRAN 101. The teacher, forgive me I only recall
her first name, had worked with Dr. Kurtz on the team that created
BASIC. She had wonderful insights to the development of the language.

What was her name? I was there and I'm trying to figure out who it was.
There weren't many women around at Dartmouth in 1964.

Hi Sarr,

The only name I've recalled thus far is Sister Mary Kenneth Keller.
However, I think it was the other Comp Sci teacher that had that story.
IIRC, the teacher with that story was tall and thin. Both teachers were
terrific. Both had Ph. D.s by the time I met them.

[Andy Burns]

Post by John Ames

Someone on the cctalk mailing list shared this - the co-creator of BASIC
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-14/thomas-kurtz-co-

creator-of-computer-language-basic-dies-at-96

Rest in peace, sir, your contribution kickstarted more than a few of our
paths in life.

Indeed.

Post by John Ames
I learned BASIC (second programming language) with the Kemeny and Kurtz
book.

I got bored of the "Strathclyde BASIC" cassettes and self-taught from
magazines of the day ...

[Carlos E.R.]

Post by John Ames
Someone on the cctalk mailing list shared this - the co-creator of
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-14/thomas-kurtz-co-creator-of-computer-language-basic-dies-at-96
Rest in peace, sir, your contribution kickstarted more than a few of
our paths in life.

True. I don't remember his name, but I certainly started with Basic,
although I did not have much access to a computer at the time, and when
I finally did it was Pascal what got my interest. But Basic has crossed
my path in life several times.

I worked in the 90's for a small company that mainly did test beds for
motors. They were what we call here Industrial Engineers, and the
software they created was done in Basic. They knew mechanics, they
learned a bit of programming, and they had a good idea of what computers
could do for their own engineering field. They were pioneers. We owe a
lot to them.

But ow, that software was difficult to maintain :-D


I worked for some time with LabWindows. I don't remember the version (3
something, perhaps). The thing is, you could write the program in Basic
or C, and the program could translate from one to another (using a
subset of the language, I suppose). The program I was given was written
in basic, and I changed it to C in order to add features and speed.


Some may remember a circuit analysis software called Microcaps II. It
was nice, but it could crash in the middle of some analysis. I gleaned
that it was written in Basic and then compiled. But the compiler did not
verify all the variables, and could try to run something stupid that an
interpreter doesn't see till run time. With the interpreter you can edit
the variable and continue running, no harm done, but with the compiled
versions you can not.