In 2023, the computer world lost a pioneer with the passing of Thomas Kurtz, co-inventor of the BASIC programming language and the Dartmouth Timesharing System along with John Kemeny. BASIC was a groundbreaking language aimed at enabling undergraduates to program in the early days of academic computing. Kurtz’s work on the Dartmouth Timesharing System allowed students to access BASIC from terminals around campus, a remarkable achievement in the 1960s. Kurtz continued to make an impact on computer education throughout his career, developing True BASIC and contributing to the establishment of industry standards for the language. His legacy lives on through the widespread use of BASIC across generations of computers.
https://computerhistory.org/blog/in-memoriam-thomas-e-kurtz-1928-2024/