The Original BASIC

MAY 1, 1964 -- The Birth of BASIC
Over 50 years later, it still enables anyone to write their own programs.

John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz invented BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) for use at Dartmouth College so that their students could quickly write useful computer programs and at the same time, understand what they were doing. English-like functions and statements helped ordinary folks perform extraordinary feats with their computer programs. They made it freely available to everyone who wanted to learn how to program computers. It soon became a world standard. True BASIC is still unequaled for raw power, logical approach, and easy-to-comprehend usability.

From Academic Use to a Commercial Company
In 1983 a group of graduating Dartmouth students persuaded Kemeny and Kurtz to offer their programming language as a commercial product. The company, True BASIC Inc., was formed and versions of the language were created for both the DOS and Mac operating systems. What had been Dartmouth BASIC 7 became the first version of True BASIC. From the beginning, True BASIC was a fully structured language.

Early on John Kemeny insisted that operating systems would change dramatically in the coming years and that True BASIC should NOT be limited to one computer platform. Today versions of True BASIC are available for DOS, MacOS, Windows, Unix, and Linux systems. The functions and statements are the same on all platforms and give you unequaled portability for your source code.

Now, over 50 years later, True BASIC continues to be one of the oldest surviving and most widely used programming languages. It allows folks who know their field or subject to write useful programs without dedicating their lives to mastering hard-to-understand computer languages. While other languages come and go, True BASIC continues to gain more and more users as they discover its inherent power and simplicity.

True BASIC is the BASIC you have been looking for: simple to use, with the full complement of functions and statements in every version. It is widely used both in schools and colleges and by individual programmers. True BASIC allows you to write and run structured code as well as line-numbered legacy code, and even compile/bind your own standalone applications.

Here you will find an exciting range of True BASIC software, toolkits, and books starting at only $19. A demo version of the True BASIC Bronze edition, with all functions and statements, can be downloaded here.