• Source: Thomas E. Kurtz

Thomas Eugene Kurtz (February 22, 1928 – November 12, 2024) was an American computer scientist and educator. A Dartmouth professor of mathematics, he and colleague John G. Kemeny set in motion the then revolutionary concept of making computers as freely available to college students as library books were, by implementing the concept of time-sharing at Dartmouth College. In his mission to allow non-expert users to interact with the computer, he co-developed the BASIC programming language and the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System during 1963 to 1964.
For his role in creating BASIC, the IEEE honored Kurtz in 1991 with the Computer Pioneer Award, and in 1994, he was inducted as a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery.




Education


A native of Oak Park, Illinois, United States, Kurtz graduated from Knox College in 1950 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics. His first experience with computing came in 1951 at the Summer Session of the Institute for Numerical Analysis at University of California, Los Angeles. Kurtz's went on to acquire his Ph.D. degree from Princeton University in 1956. His thesis was on a problem of multiple comparisons in mathematical statistics, and his advisor was John Tukey. Kurtz's mathematical interests included numerical analysis, statistics, and computer science.




Career



In 1956, he was recruited to Dartmouth College by John G. Kemeny and joined the Mathematics Department, where he taught statistics and numerical analysis.
From 1963 to 1964, Kurtz and Kemeny, working with a team of students, led the development of the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System (DTSS) and the BASIC programming language. DTSS allowed multiple users at separate terminals to share the processing power of a single machine, replacing a system of exclusive reservations. Kurtz and Kemeny prioritized simplicity, ensuring that DTSS was accessible to users without technical backgrounds.
From 1966 to 1975, Kurtz served as Director of the Kiewit Computation Center at Dartmouth, and from 1975 to 1978, Director of the Office of Academic Computing. In 1979, he and Stephen J. Garland started a Computer and Information Systems master's program at Dartmouth. After the program ended in 1988, Kurtz returned to teaching, retiring in 1993.
Kurtz also served as Council Chairman and Trustee of EDUCOM, as well as Trustee and Chairman of NERComP, and on the Pierce Panel of the President's Scientific Advisory Committee. Kurtz also served on the steering committees for the CONDUIT project and the CCUC conferences on instructional computing.
In 1974, the American Federation of Information Processing Societies gave an award to Kurtz and Kemeny at the National Computer Conference for their work on BASIC and time-sharing. In 1991, the IEEE Computer Society honored Kurtz with the Computer Pioneer Award, and in 1994, he was inducted as a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery. In 2023, he was inducted as a fellow of the Computer History Museum, with the award presented by Bill Gates.




BASIC



As part of the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System, Kemeny and Kurtz created the programming language BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code). The first BASIC program ran on May 1, 1964, at 4 a.m. At the time, neither Kemeny nor Kurtz saw this as the start of something monumental. Their main hope was that BASIC would help students in understanding and engaging with the computers they were using. While Dartmouth College held the copyright to BASIC, they made it freely accessible to anyone interested in using it, and Kemeny and Kurtz made little money from it. The name for the language originated from Kurtz's wish to have a simple acronym that meant something as well. Kurtz states that: "We wanted a word that was simple but not simple-minded, and BASIC was that one."
The theme that BASIC was for the average computer user was stressed by Kurtz. In an open letter, he reiterated upon past statements that BASIC was invented to give students a simple programming language that was easy to learn, as all the current languages of the time were dedicated to professionals. He went on to say that BASIC was for people who did not want to dedicate their lives to programming.
Although BASIC was widely regarded as a success, some critics considered it to be confusing for longer programs, especially when the "GO TO" statement was used to jump between parts of a program. In addition, because the language was not designed as a structured language, it made it difficult to split programs into separate parts to improve maintainability.
BASIC standards were created in the 1980s for the ECMA, and ANSI with their versions being released in 1986 and 1987 respectively. In 1975, when Bill Gates and Paul Allen developed a version of BASIC for the Altair 8800, one of the earliest personal computers, it helped launch the personal computer industry.
Kurtz's work on BASIC was recognized by the IEEE as part of their milestone program, which marks historic places for human innovation from around the world. A commemorative plaque was placed on February 22, 2021.




True BASIC


In 1983, in response to a proliferation of "Street BASICs," a group of graduating Dartmouth students persuaded Kemeny and Kurtz to offer the Dartmouth version of the language as a commercial product. The first offering of their company, True Basic, Inc., was based on Dartmouth BASIC 7, which featured modern programming constructs such as "IF..THEN..ELSE, DO..LOOP and EXIT DO". The company described its product as "Simple. Elegant. Powerful. True BASIC." Upon Kemeny's advice, True BASIC was not limited to a single OS or computer system. "Today versions of True BASIC are available for DOS, macOS, Microsoft Windows, Unix, and Linux systems".




Personal life


Kurtz was married to Patricia Barr from 1953 until their divorce in 1973. They had three children: twin sons Daniel Barr and Timothy David in 1954 and daughter Beth Louise in 1957. In 1974, he married Agnes Seelye Bixler, to whom he remained married until his death.
Kurtz died in Lebanon, New Hampshire, on November 12, 2024, at the age of 96.




See also


New Hampshire Historical Marker No. 261: BASIC: The First User-Friendly Computer Programming Language




References






External links


Thomas Kurtz papers Dartmouth Libraries

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