November 28, 2024: Thomas E. Kurtz, 1928-2024

Thomas Eugene Kurtz, co-creator of the BASIC programming language, passed away on November 12 at the age of 96.

Although not directly involved in the tabletop gaming industry, the BASIC language was nonetheless a vital aspect – at least tangentially – to gamers of a certain era and mindset in the late 1970s and early 1980s . . . the dawn of the home-computer era.

I was curious, so I searched through the Space Gamer archives published by Steve Jackson Games, looking for the earliest instance of BASIC referenced in this fashion. I knew I'd find something eventually; I was pleasantly surprised to discover it was, in fact, name-dropped in the very first issue we published – Space Gamer #27, cover dated March/April 1980. Bruce F. Webster's "Deus Ex Machina" column mentioned that you should be able to convert the formulae he presented into BASIC fairly easily. (This was an era when full BASIC program listings were common in computer magazines.)

Another noteworthy mention of BASIC came in Space Gamer #39, cover date May 1981. There, Lord British offered designer's notes for his computer game Akalabeth (and, tangentially, Ultima): "Ultima is written in Basic [sic] and machine language. (Akalabeth was primarily Basic.)" Yes, one of the most foundational computer RPGs owes its life to BASIC.

The language's hobbyist nature meant that it continued to be a go-to language for years; a letter from Gus Smedstad in Space Gamer #73 (March/April 1985) notes that he wrote a short BASIC program to calculate some figures for a then-ongoing Shockwave debate about Superheavy Tanks.

Speaking personally, many of my own earliest computer memories were looking at a blank screen and a blinking cursor – and knowing that my arcane-yet-understandable commands would bring the silicon to glowing-green-monochrome life.

-- Steven Marsh