BASIC's creators used a similar computer four years later to develop the programming language. Credit: GE / Wikipedia A brochure for the GE 210 computer from 1964.

Kemeny and Kurtz flipped the switch on the first BASIC program on May 1, 1964, at 4AM. Not long after, they made the language available for free to the larger computing community.

Either programming a computer was exceptionally hard and should be left to the experts, or it was something that should be democratized, as BASIC had already done. Not both.

Thomas E. Kurtz, a mathematician and inventor of the simplified computer programming language known as BASIC, which allowed students to operate early computers and eventually propelled generations ...