@arstechnica I learned basic in ~ 1981 from a book teaching the original BASIC, complete with paper terminal. Didn't get access to a computer until years later.
I'm was stunned when I learned that BASIC was co-created by one of "The Hungarians" and "He worked as Albert Einstein's mathematical assistant during graduate school." Some serious pedigrees.
@arstechnica BASIC was my first programming language, after playing around with Logo. I remember writing little programs to get the computer to make sounds like music while my classmates struggled with 100 PRINT "Hello." Such a great introduction to programming and interacting with machines.
@arstechnica Basic is not the first computer language on IBM computers. It was the much more complicated COBOL. BASIC was not for real business. My first encounter with computers was BASIC. It was just an introduction language
@arstechnica
I wrote my first code in BASIC in 1975, on an IBM computer the size of a closet, with 128kb of memory, with teletype terminals for visual feedback (8 in our classroom) and with paper tape reels to save and load our programs. It was totally empowering!