Nowadays, "basic" has a very different and derogatory Urban Dictionary-style meaning. Fifty years ago on this very day, however, it was the name given to a new computer-programming language born in a ...

Adapted from A People’s History of Computing in the United States by Joy Lisi Rankin. Out now from Harvard University Press. In the 1960s, Dartmouth College became ground zero for the coming explosion ...

Early in BASIC's history, its creators, John Kemeny (left) and Thomas Kurtz (center) go over a program with a Dartmouth student Early in BASIC's history, its creators, John Kemeny (left) and Thomas ...

The programming language, developed five decades ago, didn't require code to be entered on punch cards. It also allowed computer novices to begin programming without a lot of academic training. NPR's ...

Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. This week, President Barack Obama typed his first line of code as part of 'Hour of Code', an initiative designed to ...