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Endless Loop: The History of the BASIC Programming Language
Endless Loop chronicles the complete history of the BASIC programming language--from its humble beginnings at Dartmouth College, to its widespread adoption and dominance in education, to its decline and subsequent modern rebirth.
In the early morning hours of May 1, 1964, Dartmouth College birthed fraternal twins: BASIC, the Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code programming language, and, simultaneously, the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System (DTSS). It hadn't been an easy birth, and the gestation period was likewise difficult. BASIC was primarily the idea of one man, mathematics professor John Kemeny, a brilliant Hungarian mathematician who had once been an assistant to Albert Einstein, while the DTSS satisfied the vision of another, mathematics and statistics professor Thomas Kurtz, who had brought a democratizing spirit to Dartmouth's campus in the form of free computing for all.
BASIC and DTSS caught on at Dartmouth quickly, with a vast majority of undergraduates (and faculty) making use of the computer system via teletypewriters only several years after its inception. But by the early 1970s, with the personal computer revolution fast approaching, Kemeny and Kurtz began to lose control over BASIC as it achieved widespread popularity outside of Dartmouth. The language was being adapted to run on a wide variety of computers, some much too short of memory to contain the full set of Dartmouth BASIC features. Most notably, Microsoft built its business on the back of ROM-based BASIC interpreters for a variety of microcomputers. Although the language was ubiquitous in schools by the early 1980s, it came under attack by such notables as computer scientist Edsger W. Dijkstra for its lack of structure as well as by Kemeny and Kurtz themselves, who viewed non-Dartmouth "Street BASIC" as blasphemous and saw it as their mission to right the ship through language standardization and the release of True BASIC. But by then it was too late: the era of BASIC's global dominance was over.
In Endless Loop, author Mark Jones Lorenzo documents the history and development of Dartmouth BASIC, True BASIC, Tiny BASIC, Microsoft BASIC--including Altair BASIC, Applesoft BASIC, Color BASIC, Commodore BASIC, TRS-80 Level II BASIC, TI BASIC, IBM BASICA/GW-BASIC, QuickBASIC/QBASIC, Visual Basic, and Small Basic--as well as 9845 BASIC, Atari BASIC, BBC BASIC, CBASIC, Locomotive BASIC, MacBASIC, QB64, Simons' BASIC, Sinclair BASIC, SuperBASIC, and Turbo Basic/PowerBASIC, among a number of other implementations.
The ascendance of BASIC paralleled the emergence of the personal computer, so the story of BASIC is first and foremost a story--actually, many interlocking stories--about computers. But it is also a tale of talented people who built a language out of a set of primal ingredients: sweat, creativity, rivalry, jealousy, cooperation, and plain hard work, and then set the language loose in a world filled with unintended consequences. How those unintended consequences played out, leading to the demise of the most popular computer language the world has ever known, is the focus of Endless Loop.
In the early morning hours of May 1, 1964, Dartmouth College birthed fraternal twins: BASIC, the Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code programming language, and, simultaneously, the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System (DTSS). It hadn't been an easy birth, and the gestation period was likewise difficult. BASIC was primarily the idea of one man, mathematics professor John Kemeny, a brilliant Hungarian mathematician who had once been an assistant to Albert Einstein, while the DTSS satisfied the vision of another, mathematics and statistics professor Thomas Kurtz, who had brought a democratizing spirit to Dartmouth's campus in the form of free computing for all.
BASIC and DTSS caught on at Dartmouth quickly, with a vast majority of undergraduates (and faculty) making use of the computer system via teletypewriters only several years after its inception. But by the early 1970s, with the personal computer revolution fast approaching, Kemeny and Kurtz began to lose control over BASIC as it achieved widespread popularity outside of Dartmouth. The language was being adapted to run on a wide variety of computers, some much too short of memory to contain the full set of Dartmouth BASIC features. Most notably, Microsoft built its business on the back of ROM-based BASIC interpreters for a variety of microcomputers. Although the language was ubiquitous in schools by the early 1980s, it came under attack by such notables as computer scientist Edsger W. Dijkstra for its lack of structure as well as by Kemeny and Kurtz themselves, who viewed non-Dartmouth "Street BASIC" as blasphemous and saw it as their mission to right the ship through language standardization and the release of True BASIC. But by then it was too late: the era of BASIC's global dominance was over.
In Endless Loop, author Mark Jones Lorenzo documents the history and development of Dartmouth BASIC, True BASIC, Tiny BASIC, Microsoft BASIC--including Altair BASIC, Applesoft BASIC, Color BASIC, Commodore BASIC, TRS-80 Level II BASIC, TI BASIC, IBM BASICA/GW-BASIC, QuickBASIC/QBASIC, Visual Basic, and Small Basic--as well as 9845 BASIC, Atari BASIC, BBC BASIC, CBASIC, Locomotive BASIC, MacBASIC, QB64, Simons' BASIC, Sinclair BASIC, SuperBASIC, and Turbo Basic/PowerBASIC, among a number of other implementations.
The ascendance of BASIC paralleled the emergence of the personal computer, so the story of BASIC is first and foremost a story--actually, many interlocking stories--about computers. But it is also a tale of talented people who built a language out of a set of primal ingredients: sweat, creativity, rivalry, jealousy, cooperation, and plain hard work, and then set the language loose in a world filled with unintended consequences. How those unintended consequences played out, leading to the demise of the most popular computer language the world has ever known, is the focus of Endless Loop.
186 pages, Paperback
Published August 22, 2017
8 people are currently reading
136 people want to read
About the author
Mark Jones Lorenzo
17 books12 followersMark Jones Lorenzo, a teacher of mathematics, statistics, and computer programming, is the author of numerous books. He lives in Pennsylvania with his dogs.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 3, 2022
well, if you want to read a book about the history of BASIC, this certainly seems to be the one to read.
April 3, 2021
Overall this is a pretty engaging history of the origins and evolution of the BASIC language over the years, particularly the changes between the original compiled Dartmouth BASIC and the microcomputer BASICs like Microsoft and BBC BASIC of the late 1970s and 1980s. It definitely brought back some nostalgia for the "joys" of typing in programs from magazines (in an era when it was much cheaper to kill a few trees to publish software than to give it to you on a tape or floppy disk) and the thrill of seeing one's own program in print in a magazine. Lorenzo also acknowledges the important role of women like Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper (along with thousands of anonymous "computers") in the development of computing more generally.
However there are quite a few distracting typographic errors, such as references to "Alan Turning" (sic) and the "QUERTY" keyboard that seem to have slipped in here and there, and sometimes the narrative feels disorganized, with frequent asides and tangents. Mind you the history of BASIC is intertwined with the broader history of the democratization of computing through timesharing and microcomputing, so some degree of tangential discussion is warranted.
Also, some of the material is downright misleading or incorrect, such as the discussion of Turing's work on breaking codes at Bletchley Park; while Colossus was certainly valuable in their work, Enigma was first broken by hand and then using the electromechanical "bombes" before the more general-purpose Colossus was built.
Finally I think we should be more optimistic that there is access to programming to beginners today. Yes, some of the role of BASIC has been supplanted by database and spreadsheet software, and most users can avoid programming except in certain domains like statistical analysis, but the Raspberry Pi Foundation and others have shown that there are still ways to get young people thinking like programmers through robotics. We also have more recent programming languages designed to be accessible to beginners, most notably Python which very much is a spiritual successor to BASIC as a language designed to be approachable by new programmers while also bringing in elements of structured programming from Algol-derived languages, functional programming from LISP, and object oriented programming from C++/Java using syntax more similar to other Algol-derived languages and reducing needless verbosity like modern BASICs' Pascal/Ada-inspired use of Begin/End style statements. We may have moved on from BASIC but the spirit of the creators' intent certainly lives on elsewhere.
However there are quite a few distracting typographic errors, such as references to "Alan Turning" (sic) and the "QUERTY" keyboard that seem to have slipped in here and there, and sometimes the narrative feels disorganized, with frequent asides and tangents. Mind you the history of BASIC is intertwined with the broader history of the democratization of computing through timesharing and microcomputing, so some degree of tangential discussion is warranted.
Also, some of the material is downright misleading or incorrect, such as the discussion of Turing's work on breaking codes at Bletchley Park; while Colossus was certainly valuable in their work, Enigma was first broken by hand and then using the electromechanical "bombes" before the more general-purpose Colossus was built.
Finally I think we should be more optimistic that there is access to programming to beginners today. Yes, some of the role of BASIC has been supplanted by database and spreadsheet software, and most users can avoid programming except in certain domains like statistical analysis, but the Raspberry Pi Foundation and others have shown that there are still ways to get young people thinking like programmers through robotics. We also have more recent programming languages designed to be accessible to beginners, most notably Python which very much is a spiritual successor to BASIC as a language designed to be approachable by new programmers while also bringing in elements of structured programming from Algol-derived languages, functional programming from LISP, and object oriented programming from C++/Java using syntax more similar to other Algol-derived languages and reducing needless verbosity like modern BASICs' Pascal/Ada-inspired use of Begin/End style statements. We may have moved on from BASIC but the spirit of the creators' intent certainly lives on elsewhere.
April 8, 2021
Interesting to read about the history of computers and about the lives of people that are now famous. The creativity of people who looked at a huuuuuge calculator that took up the whole room, that took hours of tedious work to produce a result, and saw the future. The discussions about education or about paying for software. And just realising how much PCs have changed our lives, how much easier they are to use now than back then. I especially enjoyed the parts where Gates & Jobs accuse each other of stealing, and programmers saying teaching kids BASIC will damage them beyond repair. I'm not particularly interested in the details of all the different versions of BASIC, I could have done without the lists of commands.
The book itself isn't well written at all, it lacks focus and is incoherent, and I would have liked to know more about some of the people and ideas. I thought it was quite difficult to read sometimes, as a non-tech person not knowing the difference between a compiler and an interpreter or why you would choose one over the other. But I can image that even if you do know a bit about computers, you might not know some of the older concepts, brands, etc. I mean, I'm old enough to know floppy disks, have used a Commodore and MS-DOS, and my uncle used Lotus, but for younger people this is ancient history. Some explanation of the most important terminology would have been nice at least.
The book itself isn't well written at all, it lacks focus and is incoherent, and I would have liked to know more about some of the people and ideas. I thought it was quite difficult to read sometimes, as a non-tech person not knowing the difference between a compiler and an interpreter or why you would choose one over the other. But I can image that even if you do know a bit about computers, you might not know some of the older concepts, brands, etc. I mean, I'm old enough to know floppy disks, have used a Commodore and MS-DOS, and my uncle used Lotus, but for younger people this is ancient history. Some explanation of the most important terminology would have been nice at least.
March 7, 2021
An interesting book on how BASIC was conceived, and how it developed into a myriad of versions for as many different platforms and purposes.
It seems thorough research has gone into this, but unfortunately the author crams so many names and places in run-off sentences that it's sometimes impossible to get through. So, 3 of 5.
It seems thorough research has gone into this, but unfortunately the author crams so many names and places in run-off sentences that it's sometimes impossible to get through. So, 3 of 5.
December 29, 2024
Endless Loop: The History of BASIC Programming Language by Mark Jones Lorenzo was so much fun to read. The reason it was so much fun for me was because I’m an alumnus of the 1980s BASIC generation. BASIC wasn’t my first language. That honor goes to IBM EXEC, which was perhaps more accurately called a command shell language (though still rather powerful and majorly unstructured). Nevertheless, this bit of personal history is a clue to the type of person to whom this book might appeal. My opinion: if you’re a computer geek with roots in the 1980s and have experience with at least one of the many flavors of BASIC (my first was AppleSoft BASIC, followed by IBM GW-BASIC) then I suspect you may like this book as much as I did. For example, do you remember DONKEY.BAS or GORILLA.BAS? If this profile doesn't describe you, I have no idea at all what you may get out of Endless Loop.
August 1, 2023
A book that covers all the history of BASIC (the programming language). I liked the beginning of the books but it got worse and worse.
The book started with an interesting story of how and why BASIC came into the world. This part of the book I really enjoyed. However, as the book progressed the story completely fragmented (similar to the language). I can understand the authors wish to cover everything and not skip small "off-shoots" but I think it destroyed the flow of the story.
There are many great nuggets in this book and it is worth reading (Dartmouth, Apple, Microsoft, Gates, Jobs ...)
However, be warned, the book will cover more basic versions than bits on a floppy.
The book started with an interesting story of how and why BASIC came into the world. This part of the book I really enjoyed. However, as the book progressed the story completely fragmented (similar to the language). I can understand the authors wish to cover everything and not skip small "off-shoots" but I think it destroyed the flow of the story.
There are many great nuggets in this book and it is worth reading (Dartmouth, Apple, Microsoft, Gates, Jobs ...)
However, be warned, the book will cover more basic versions than bits on a floppy.
June 4, 2019
I really liked this book on BASIC. Easy to read and definitly filled in some gaps of my knowledge and totally made sense. It also made me think back to those days where I hoped that Santa read my christmas wishlist and brought me that Tandy or that Apple IIe. I guess Santa wasn't in partnership with Microsoft or Apple at that time. :(
It's amazing how much detail there is and how much is documented about the history of BASIC. This author really did some research. He even cites his sources and gave a short opinon piece at the end. I'm going to try and find his other books as well.
It's amazing how much detail there is and how much is documented about the history of BASIC. This author really did some research. He even cites his sources and gave a short opinon piece at the end. I'm going to try and find his other books as well.
March 10, 2019
This was an interesting and well researched book about the BASIC programming language. BASIC was the first language I learned when I got my first computer-a Commodore 64-back in the early 80s, and though I haven’t used it in many years, I still remember it fondly. This book brought back many memories of typing in programs from magazines and modifying them. Very fun book!
March 1, 2021
Good overview of early computer days through the lens of basic.
February 21, 2025
Heavy nostalgia, right into my veins.
October 7, 2023
Something for retro-computing enthusiasts, and a book I really enjoyed. When I was first discovering computers in high school, the language you learned was BASIC, and a computer science course mostly consisted of learning BASIC. But, BASIC had to be invented by someone, and here is that story. Nor is it entirely irrelevant. Even though BASIC is older than I am, its current incarnations are still in use today. I myself frequently have to use Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code with Microsoft Excel in my day job.
BASIC in fact was created at Dartmouth by Professors John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz, and launched in May of 1964. This history includes interesting trivia -- Kemeny had been a research assistant for Albert Einstein. He went on to become the Chairman of Dartmouth's math department by age 30, and later was President of Dartmouth College. Also, the computer these gentlemen used to create BASIC was a GE225 -- a computer developed at General Electric by a team led by Steven Spielberg's father. You didn't see THAT coming, did you?
Kemeny and Kurtz did not patent or copyright the language, because they wanted to maximize its spread and usage among the budding computer industry and among students. And that certainly proved successful. As the book recounts, this meant that eventually other people -- such as Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak -- created variations of BASIC beyond the control of Kemeny and Kurtz. Indeed BASIC is what gave Microsoft its start, and was Microsoft's primary business in its early years before MS-DOS. In time the existing BASICs came to be criticized for not conforming to evolving standards for programming, which led Kemeny and Kurtz in the 1980s to create a new and improved version of BASIC called True Basic -- which didn't really gain much traction.
In summary, a nice look back at a bit of computer history, I enjoyed the read.
BASIC in fact was created at Dartmouth by Professors John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz, and launched in May of 1964. This history includes interesting trivia -- Kemeny had been a research assistant for Albert Einstein. He went on to become the Chairman of Dartmouth's math department by age 30, and later was President of Dartmouth College. Also, the computer these gentlemen used to create BASIC was a GE225 -- a computer developed at General Electric by a team led by Steven Spielberg's father. You didn't see THAT coming, did you?
Kemeny and Kurtz did not patent or copyright the language, because they wanted to maximize its spread and usage among the budding computer industry and among students. And that certainly proved successful. As the book recounts, this meant that eventually other people -- such as Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak -- created variations of BASIC beyond the control of Kemeny and Kurtz. Indeed BASIC is what gave Microsoft its start, and was Microsoft's primary business in its early years before MS-DOS. In time the existing BASICs came to be criticized for not conforming to evolving standards for programming, which led Kemeny and Kurtz in the 1980s to create a new and improved version of BASIC called True Basic -- which didn't really gain much traction.
In summary, a nice look back at a bit of computer history, I enjoyed the read.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews