BASIC

BASIC is one of the first programming languages ever to be created. It was first used as a programming language on minicomputers in the late 1960s. Later, most home computers shipped with BASIC in ROM. The name is an acronym (a word made from other words) that spells Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.  

 History 
It was designed by John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz in 1963. It was based in part on Fortran and made to follow these eight principles:

 Be easy for beginners to use
 Be a general-purpose programming language
 Allow extra features to be added for experienced programmers.
 Be interactive
 Provide clear and friendly error messages
 Does not require knowledge about computer hardware
 Stop the user from editing the operating system

The creators made the compiler free of charge to make programmers interested in using the language. Since the creation, many other compilers and interpreters have been made so users can make their programs.

 Code example 
10 LET N=10
20 FOR I=1 TO N
30 PRINT "Hello, World!"
40 NEXT I

This puts Hello, World! on the screen 10 times.

Category:Programming languages
Category:1963 establishments
Category:Acronyms
Category:ISO standards