Happy 50th Birthday, BASIC!

The adored programming language of yesteryear was born May 1, 1964.

The programming language BASIC celebrates its 50th birthday today. Long before spreadsheets or iPhone calculators were a boring staple of everyday existence, PC users (and the "personal" part of that is used loosely) had to write programs to carry out mundane tasks, like counting stuff. It was hardly mundane at the time, though. Invented in 1964 by Dartmouth College's John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz, the language, short for "Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code," was initially developed to run the school's General Electric computer system. Its creators had no idea it would eventually go on to be taught in high school curriculums across the country. Here's how Time's Harry McCracken lovingly describes it:

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