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Category: Home Computer

Thomas Kurtz and John Kemeny develop the BASIC programming language (Beginners’ All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.) This simple language would enable a lot of people to design and write their own games, who otherwise probably wouldn’t have had the technical knowledge to do so. Games written in BASIC will be hugely popular during the home-computer revolution in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when commercial software was scarce and the idea was that most people would write their own.

BASIC code is usually interpreted instead of compiled to machine code. This means that most games were distributed in source-code format, often through magazines and books, and were therefore easily distributable. That, and the fact that practically every system of the day came with a BASIC interpreter, meant that these games could really become immensely popular, and travel the world. And so they did.