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That manual is a great find! Dr. Kurtz was surely way ahead of his time in aiming to bring computing to the masses, well before the microcomputer revolution. BA
by marsten 2y ago
That manual is a great find! Dr. Kurtz was surely way ahead of his time in aiming to bring computing to the masses, well before the microcomputer revolution. BASIC was an easy onramp to programming that hooked a ton of people on computing, especially kids of the 70s/80s like me. He shaped the future as much as anyone.
- ghaff 2y agoThe funny thing is that I went undergrad to some big name tech school in the late 70s and you barely had access to computers without a specific need or for specific coursework. (I took FORTRAN using punch cards and a mainframe.) At Dartmouth for grad school, access to computing resources was much more democratized, even though I was working in material science.
- pasc1878 2y agoThe reason for that is simple. money. In my first year FORTRAN or cards as you say then the University department bought a mini and used BASIC.
- ghaff 2y agoAbout the next year the joint computer facility (i.e. non-EE/CS) got a VAX but I never had a particular reason to get an account. Looking back, the EECS department was actually a pretty active center for computer-related research. But computers weren't widely-used elsewhere at the time.