Home Fifty Years of BASIC, the Programming Language That Made Computers Personal Fifty Years of BASIC, the Programming Language That Made Computers Personal A very comprehensive history of BASIC from Time magazine. Invented by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, BASIC was first successfully used to run programs on the schoolâ€™s General Electric computer system 50 years ago this weekâ€“at 4 a.m. on May 1, 1964, to be precise. Edit: Dartmouth is celebrating Basic at 50. Comment viewing options Flat list - collapsed Flat list - expanded Threaded list - collapsed Threaded list - expanded Date - newest first Date - oldest first Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.