I invited Kurtz to give a keynote at VCF East in 2012. He graciously accepted. It was a thrill to meet him, because I grew up on BASIC (via Apple II, C64, etc.) and still use it today! My biggest mistake during 15 years leading VCF was that I didn't have his lecture recorded. :( On 11/21/24 12:54 PM, Annette Vee via Members wrote:
Hello, SIGCIS, Folks here likely saw this, but I didn't see it come through (apologies if I missed it). Thomas Kurtz, who developed BASIC and the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System (DTSS) with John Kemeny, passed away last week, at 96. NY Times
Hello, SIGCIS,
Folks here likely saw this, but I didn't see it come through (apologies if I missed it). Thomas Kurtz, who developed BASIC and the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System (DTSS) with John Kemeny, passed away last week, at 96.
NY Times obit <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/16/technology/thomas-kurtz-dead.html__;!!DLa72PTfQgg!McndxL0dk_LxAVU6xByk0RDdCZxkP_0gxv-3e4i9qqJ-evnW8ZXPNBeMgWBTgmH0yjspw-elNAYkfUm2Trg$>: “At Dartmouth, long before the days of laptops and smartphones, he worked to give more students access to computers. That work helped propel generations into a new world.”
Dartmouth obit <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://faculty.dartmouth.edu/artsandsciences/news/2024/11/remembering-computing-legend-thomas-kurtz__;!!DLa72PTfQgg!McndxL0dk_LxAVU6xByk0RDdCZxkP_0gxv-3e4i9qqJ-evnW8ZXPNBeMgWBTgmH0yjspw-elNAYkLzniqRg$>: "Dartmouth had the largest open-stack library in the world at that time in a college of this type, and the concept of open-stack computing, that was my idea," Kurtz said. "Thatʼs one of the few ideas I had that Kemeny didnʼt have." [he was modest, and deeply admired Kemeny!]
Computer History Museum obit <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://computerhistory.org/blog/in-memoriam-thomas-e-kurtz-1928-2024/__;!!DLa72PTfQgg!McndxL0dk_LxAVU6xByk0RDdCZxkP_0gxv-3e4i9qqJ-evnW8ZXPNBeMgWBTgmH0yjspw-elNAYkCHfO8vM$>: "DTSS was the earliest successful, large-scale timesharing system, a remarkable achievement. [...] DTSS was unveiled on May 1, 1964, along with BASIC. By that fall, hundreds of students were exploring BASIC on the 20 terminals around campus."
People on HackerNews <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42141761__;!!DLa72PTfQgg!McndxL0dk_LxAVU6xByk0RDdCZxkP_0gxv-3e4i9qqJ-evnW8ZXPNBeMgWBTgmH0yjspw-elNAYkwDXhxCo$> are paying their respects by mentioning the influence of BASIC on their lives and careers.
I interviewed him in 2017. He was so generous, and as brilliant as you'd expect. He wrote me a memo on "Grammatical Simplifications in BASIC." He loved memos--was an academic mathematician at heart, even at 89! I wrote about the interview here: https://annettevee.substack.com/p/thomas-kurtz-basic-and-computing <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://annettevee.substack.com/p/thomas-kurtz-basic-and-computing__;!!DLa72PTfQgg!McndxL0dk_LxAVU6xByk0RDdCZxkP_0gxv-3e4i9qqJ-evnW8ZXPNBeMgWBTgmH0yjspw-elNAYkKzYgbNs$> and also in 2023, in a critical code studies article, "BASIC FTBALL and Computer Programming for All <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/17/2/000696/000696.html__;!!DLa72PTfQgg!McndxL0dk_LxAVU6xByk0RDdCZxkP_0gxv-3e4i9qqJ-evnW8ZXPNBeMgWBTgmH0yjspw-elNAYknsvlGdU$>”
Other great work on BASIC that many here already know: The Birth of BASIC documentary <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYPNjSoDrqw__;!!DLa72PTfQgg!McndxL0dk_LxAVU6xByk0RDdCZxkP_0gxv-3e4i9qqJ-evnW8ZXPNBeMgWBTgmH0yjspw-elNAYkgEEkeKU$>: from the 50th anniversary of BASIC, in 2014. Rankin, J. (2018) A People's History of Computing in the United States. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Montfort, N. et al. (2014) 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1));: GOTO 10, Cambridge: MIT Press.
Annette
Annette Vee
Associate Professor of English
University of Pittsburgh
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