Surely BASIC is properly obsolete by now, right? Perhaps not. In addition to inspiring a large part of home computing today, BASIC is still very much alive today, even outside of retro computing.

Long before you were picking up Python and JavaScript, in the predawn darkness of May 1, 1964, a modest but pivotal moment in computing history unfolded at Dartmouth College. Mathematicians John G.

Microsoft’s 6502 BASIC ran on the same CPU that powered the Apple II, Commodore 8-bit series, NES, and Atari 2600. Microsoft’s 6502 BASIC ran on the same CPU that powered the Apple II, Commodore 8-bit ...