BASIC

since 1963 (earliest usage recorded on this site was 1968)

In computer programming, BASIC (an acronym for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of high-level programming languages. The original BASIC was designed in 1964 by John George Kemeny and Thomas Eugene Kurtz at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, USA to provide computer access to non-science students. At the time, nearly all use of computers required writing custom software, which was something only scientists and mathematicians tended to be able to do. The language and its variants became widespread on microcomputers in the late 1970s and 1980s. BASIC remains popular to this day in a handful of highly modified dialects and new languages influenced by BASIC such as Microsoft Visual Basic.

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Technology Timeline Graph

1968

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holdenweb

growe

JamieXML

hexdump42

empty

AndyC

dabeaz

coordt

jorjun

avowkind

shiny

lawley

sceptreofjudah

Bunglebogs

kan

mpirnat

jtauber

boutell

fuzzyman

ptone

bhaugen

whosaysni

ndw

MarkofCain

reed

notanumber

r1chardj0n3s

bmaxwell

undoingemptyvoid

jeffself

LorenDavie

drakkos

abtin

zephyrfalcon

deep

clepine

bittercoder

ubersoldat

cdeblois

Uche

thumper

jamesotron

k_wade_a

ashugg

zellyn

karlstolley

RCARDENES

kevinpet

mjhagen

Josh

jefftriplett

spookylukey

davidpaccoud

jkocherhans

carljm

paltman

reinout

asksol

UloPe

bob

rragan

mwalling

rizumu

RossP

frankwiles

natevw

bkonkle

barneyboo

adityo

ShawnMilo

apostolos

MattBowen

cstejerean

nullomodo

aquilax

andrew

tmcw

jjames

alecperkins

eddymul

beshrkayali

vrejohanian

anoop

james

bkopanja

Kanru

stevejohnson

fisadev

foomor

CrociDB

Raisapius

holdenweb - 23 years

growe - 43 years

JamieXML - 43 years

hexdump42 - 1 years

empty - 9 years

AndyC - 3 years

dabeaz - 10 years

coordt - 6 years

jorjun - 14 years

avowkind - 2 years

shiny - 33 years

lawley - 33 years

sceptreofjudah - 3 years

dl - 9 years

Bunglebogs - 11 years

kan - 4 years

mpirnat - 7 years

jtauber - 6 years

boutell - 12 years

fuzzyman - 14 years

ptone - 2 years

bhaugen - 19 years

whosaysni - 4 years

ndw - 3 years

MarkofCain - 30 years

reed - 5 years

notanumber - 9 years

r1chardj0n3s - 6 years

bmaxwell - 29 years

undoingemptyvoid - 3 years

jeffself - 4 years

LorenDavie - 5 years

drakkos - 29 years

abtin - 5 years

zephyrfalcon - 11 years

deep - 9 years

clepine - 11 years

bittercoder - 28 years

ubersoldat - 4 years

cdeblois - 6 years

Uche - 4 years

thumper - 1 years

jamesotron - 4 years

k_wade_a - 27 years

ashugg - 6 years

zellyn - 26 years

karlstolley - 3 years

RCARDENES - 26 years

kevinpet - 7 years

mjhagen - 4 years

Josh - 8 years

jefftriplett - 25 years

spookylukey - 25 years

davidpaccoud - 2 years

jkocherhans - 2 years

carljm - 8 years

paltman - 4 years

reinout - 2 years

asksol - 5 years

UloPe - 9 years

bob - 23 years

rragan - 3 years

mwalling - 9 years

rizumu - 2 years

RossP - 4 years

frankwiles - 2 years

natevw - 8 years

bkonkle - 6 years

barneyboo - 12 years

adityo - 4 years

ShawnMilo - 2 years

apostolos - 2 years

MattBowen - 3 years

cstejerean - 11 years

nullomodo - 3 years

aquilax - 4 years

andrew - 3 years

tmcw - 18 years

jjames - 4 years

alecperkins - 3 years

eddymul - 16 years

beshrkayali - 3 years

vrejohanian - 5 years

anoop - 4 years

james - 14 years

bkopanja - 4 years

Kanru - 4 years

stevejohnson - 5 years

fisadev - 2 years

foomor - 1 years

CrociDB - 10 years

Raisapius - 6 years

holdenweb

1968–1990

Used in various variants from QBASIC through BASIC PLUS to Visual BASIC

JamieXML

1970–

Original on a TTY, and BIICAC (extended basic) later. I guess there's no end date, if intermittent work with Borland stuff & then modern Visual Basic over the decades counts

growe

1970–

The very first computer program I wrote was around 1970 when I was in high school. I can't say for sure the language was Basic. All I can remember is that I wrote the program by using "mark sense" cards, where a soft pencil was used to fill in squares on a card, which was then read by an optical reader and sent to the computer. The program calculated the area of a triangle.

hexdump42

1975

Using my cousin's university account wrote my first ever program on pencil marked cards and submitted as a batch job.

vangale

empty

1977–1985

Although not listed my first language was DR Basic on a Heathkit CP/M machine. I later got a Z80 card for my ][e so I could continue to use it.

AndyC

1978–1980

I used this on a UK-101 which was a UK kit version of the Ohio Superboard http://oldcomputers.net/osi-600.html

dabeaz

1978–1987

The programming language used in a "Computers for Kids" course taught at the community college. Wrote short BASIC programs on punch-cards and fed them into an IBM mainframe. Later wrote BASIC programs on an Ohio Scientific Superboard II computer. This system had 8K of RAM and Microsoft BASIC installed.

tom

jorjun

1979–1992

Learned on commodore PET, and later on the BBC Micro in 1984. Slow run-time speeds spurred me to get into assembler.

petersod

avowkind

1979–1980

First basic was on a teletype to guildford uni from school. I wrote a monopoly game and stored it on punched tape - used a whole reel. Learned Sinclair Basic for the ZX80. Then moved to Forth and refused ever to go back.

coordt

1979–1984

AppleSoft Basic

Bunglebogs

1980–1990

shiny

1980–

i did a lotta basic on the trs80, and lots more using GW-basic on XT, AT and later

kan

1980–1983

1980–1988

thanks, lawrence hall of science. later various TRS-80's for grades and last used ca. 1988 for controlling experimental apparati. I haven't had call to use it since, but that doesn't mean one never encounters the occasional animated corpse ... cf. http://augustss.blogspot.com/2009/02/is-haskell-fast-lets-do-simple.html

yacitus

sceptreofjudah

1980–1982

I used Basic to determine probabilities for various slot machines and video poker machines.

1980–

1981–1986

Used a bunch of different dialects but mostly Color Basic and (especially) AppleSoft Basic.

gnat

brucehoult

boutell

1981–1992

I cut my teeth on the TRS-80 Model III. No graphics to speak of, so I spent a lot of time writing text adventures with D&D combat rules, multiplayer variations on HAMURABI, things of this nature.

patricktaylor

mpirnat

1981–1987

fuzzyman

1982–1995

First BBC Basic then AMOS Basic on the Amiga.

ptone

1982–1983

I used this on a TI-99/4A but am not sure if it was a ANSI version or the TI specific variant

doughellmann

joemcmahon

bhaugen

1982–2000

Various dialects, starting with IBM 5110, thru HP250, to Visual Basic.

paulsmith

whosaysni

1982–1985

N-BASIC on PC-8001 by NEC.

1982–1984

1983–1987

TI-99/4A Extended Basic

1983–

1984–1988

TRS-80 Model III.

jeffself

1984–1987

First language. Only one that came with my Compaq Deskpro back in 1984.

drakkos

1984–

We all learned basic at one point. It's what made us the twisted, hateful shells of humanity that we are.

undoingemptyvoid

1984–1986

It was a dialect of BASIC called QNE Basic for using BTrieve files as a database in a LAN environment - primitive file locking and so forth. Used EXTENDED DOS Characters to "draw" screen. It was on an internship and I got to write an entire application from scratch with the actual customer... nearly agile!

notanumber

1984–1992

bmaxwell

1984–

r1chardj0n3s

1984–1989

10 print "hello" 20 goto 10 HELL YEAH!

1984–1988

1985–1993

1985–

My first experiences with Basic where learning the language (without even having a computer) from listings in "learn to the program" books aimed at children in the early 80's - I moved on from there to APPLESOFT BASIC, then COMMODORE BASIC, GWBASIC, QBASIC and then Visual Basic.

krisse2

cdeblois

1985–1990

Purely educational.

dasil003

zephyrfalcon

1985–1995

clepine

1985–1995

Began coding on a TRS-80 CoCo 2 using the built-in BASIC ROM. Ended with an Apple ][e in junior high.

Uche

1985–1988

On a ZX Spectrum+ and an Amstrad PCW in Nigeria (Port Harcourt)

ubersoldat

1985–1988

The "Java" of my time. Everyone was learning with it.

k_wade_a

1986–

The first computer language I ever learned. I can't remeber the exact year. My dad taught it to me on our Apple IIe.

jamesotron

1986–1989

My first programming experience, on my friend's Atari 800. Beautiful.

thumper

1986

Brief dabbling trying out programming. Had an old games console that booted into basic if there was no cartridge. Atari 400 I think.

rah

tlesher

zellyn

1987–

My first language, on a ZX-81!

1987–1993

1987–

1987–1992

Pretty sure I haven't used it since "upgrading" to Turbo Pascal.

karlstolley

1987–1989

jefftriplett

1988–

My second programming language after LOGO. I use to take paper to my grade school library and I'd write the code down from 3-2-1 contact magazine so I could try out the programs from our class rooms Apple IIe. Later I used GW-Basic when I was on a PC.

1988–1995

1988–1991

First time I saw code

1988–

1989–1992

1989–1993

1989–1996

TI-BASIC on a TI-99/4A, later the TI-83 graphing calculator and hacking Nibbles on MS QBASIC.

jkocherhans

1989–1990

In 4th grade, one of classmates dads worked at Unisys or something and came in to teach GWBASIC one day a week. I proceeded to write program after program that told my friends they were losers, and that I was awesome based on the name you entered. I'm glad I was like 9, otherwise that would have gotten old pretty quickly.

davidpaccoud

1989–1990

Thompson TO8 programming.

Zak

reinout

1989–1990

Toying with the gwbasic that came with dos 4.0

1989–1997

1990–

1991–1993

1991–1999

C64 baby! Then QBasic on my 286 and 486

rizumu

1992–1993

Learned a little BASIC in 6th grade. I made an animation of a cliff jumper diving into the ocean.... splash.

1992–1993

1992–1995

1993–2000

I learned to program in BASIC on an Apple /// as well as its Apple ][ emulator, and continued to write silly little stuff with it as I collected TRS-80, Commodores and others cheap at garage sales.

1994–1999

1994–1995

1994–1996

Ahh the wonders of dos and basic

barneyboo

1994–2005

Whether it was QBASIC or Spectrum BASIC, I dabbled from a worryingly early age - and unfortunately had to return to it up until Higher Computing :\

1994–1997

1994–1995

Did some gwbasic in high school.

MattBowen

1994–1996

My brother snagged an Atari 800XL from a vintage game shop when I was in elementary school, and I got the books and tapes for learning Atari Basic and wrote some very simple basic programs to make it ask for input and change screen colors.

cstejerean

1994–2004

davisagli

andrew

1995–1997

My first programming language

lambacck

tmcw

1995–

jjames

1995–1998

I accidentally learned BASIC on a Sharp graphing calculator (and later TI) as a side effect of trying to avoid having to memorize physics equations. Turned out that after I'd expressed them as software I couldn't forget them.

aquilax

1995–1998

My first programming language

1996–1998

Like many before, lost my coding v-card to basic.

1997–

1998–2000

AmigaBasic on my Amiga600 got me interested in programming. So this is the starting point.

vrejohanian

1998–2002

aaa.. i was a teenager :D

1998–2001

1999–

2000–2003

2001–2005

First language. Wrote a lot of games.

2001–2004

2002–2003

My first contact with software development, on a home-made 486 at the age of 14.

2002

2003–

2005–2010

My first programming language was Yabasic. It was a pretty standard BASIC dialect, but lacked some of the more advanced features that dialects like QBASIC had. Still, I loved making various tools and toys with it. In my video game design class, I used to use a language called DarkBASIC, but I quit using it after graduating high school.