Passing of Thomas E. Kurtz (co-creator of BASIC)

[carey]

https://computerhistory.org/blog/in-memo...1928-2024/

[toml_12953]

(11-18-2024 12:13 PM)carey Wrote:  https://computerhistory.org/blog/in-memo...1928-2024/

Yes, it's very sad. He was a brilliant man but he also was a warm human being. I wrote to him several times with questions about TrueBASIC (a language he and John Kemeny wrote to bring BASIC up to modern Dartmouth standards) and he always answered me with the correct answer and more than that, he gave me real world problems to solve and challenged me to solve them in BASIC and send him the resulting program. After I did, he'd write back and we would discuss alternate ways of solving the problem. He seemed to revel in our discussions. Even though I never had a class with him, I learned more about programming from him than I did in five years of college.

RIP, Tom.

[Namir]

Sorry to hear about the passing of Professor Kurtz. In the mid 80s I had a chance to meet him and visit with him a few times at the TrueBASIC offices. He was very nice and easy to get along with. I still use TrueBASIC once every blue moon!

Namir

[carey]

(11-18-2024 09:32 PM)toml_12953 Wrote:  …TrueBASIC (a language he and John Kemeny wrote to bring BASIC up to modern Dartmouth standards)…

Yes, the original Dartmouth time-sharing BASIC had built-in MAT (matrix) commands. The BASIC versions that subsequently became available on 8-bit computers included no matrix commands and BASIC developed a reputation as a toy programming language. Interestingly, Kemeny had been a math assistant to Einstein during grad school and worked under Feynman at Las Alamos.

[Namir]

(11-18-2024 11:26 PM)carey Wrote:  

(11-18-2024 09:32 PM)toml_12953 Wrote:  …TrueBASIC (a language he and John Kemeny wrote to bring BASIC up to modern Dartmouth standards)…

Yes, the original Dartmouth time-sharing BASIC had built-in MAT (matrix) commands. The BASIC versions that subsequently became available on 8-bit computers included no matrix commands and BASIC developed a reputation as a toy programming language. Interestingly, Kemeny had been a math assistant to Einstein during grad school and worked under Feynman at Las Alamos.

I had a chance to meet Kemeny once at the TrueBASIC office in the mid 80s. I did ask him about working for Einstein. He said that even in his 70s, Eisnetin was brilliant. He was tasked to solve a set of advanced partial differential equations.

Namir

[carey]

(11-18-2024 11:50 PM)Namir Wrote:  I had a chance to meet Kemeny once at the TrueBASIC office in the mid 80s. I did ask him about working for Einstein. He said that even in his 70s, Eisnetin was brilliant. He was tasked to solve a set of advanced partial differential equations.

Namir, that is so cool!

Here is an image of one page of those partial differential equations written by Einstein for his unified field theory that auction house Christie's sourced to Kemeny and sold for GBP 5,595 in 2019.

When asked about his work with Einstein, Kemeny wrote: "People would ask - did you know enough physics to help Einstein? My standard line was: Einstein did not need help in physics. But contrary to popular belief, Einstein did need help in mathematics. By which I do not mean that he wasn't good at mathematics. He was very good at it, but he was not an up-to-date, research-level mathematician. So he needed an assistant for that, and, frankly, I was more up-to-date in mathematics than he was."

[LinusSch]

(11-19-2024 06:43 AM)carey Wrote:  When asked about his work with Einstein, Kemeny wrote: "People would ask - did you know enough physics to help Einstein? My standard line was: Einstein did not need help in physics. But contrary to popular belief, Einstein did need help in mathematics. By which I do not mean that he wasn't good at mathematics. He was very good at it, but he was not an up-to-date, research-level mathematician. So he needed an assistant for that, and, frankly, I was more up-to-date in mathematics than he was."

Brilliantly put by Kemeny. I think this happens quite a bit at the forefront of research, help is needed from up-to-date research in fundamental or adjacent fields. And I have more than once encountered that I do not know enough math well enough to understand what the physics researchers are saying... while they are actively trying to explain physics to me!

[Eddie W. Shore]

Rest in Peace and Eternal Gratitude, Mr. Kurtz.

TrueBASIC was my introduction to BASIC and computer/mathematics programming altogether when I was a child in the 1980s.

[Ren]

[quote='LinusSch' pid='195897' dateline='1732005129'
Brilliantly put by Kemeny. I think this happens quite a bit at the forefront of research, help is needed from up-to-date research in fundamental or adjacent fields. And I have more than once encountered that I do not know enough math well enough to understand what the physics researchers are saying... while they are actively trying to explain physics to me!
[/quote]

When I worked with an Aviation Weather Research group* 25+ years ago, we had a Math Ph.D. on staff to assist the scientists and programmers with their algorithms.

Ren
dona nobis pacem

* National Center for Atmospheric Research - Research Applications Laboratory

[Liamtoh Resu]

During the early seventies we had a version of time-sharing BASIC on the NCR Century computer.
It helped to reinforce concepts from math, chemistry, and physics. I was able to create small programs
for HS science experiments. We used eight level paper tape for backups.

This was a time when sliderulers and the HP-35 was the norm.

In the late seventies and through the eighties, BASIC was adapted to many microcomputers.
There was much support via books and magazines. This enabled many people to learn to
solve problems without having to be connected to universities or businesses.

Microsoft, Atari, and Commodore all had access to a version of BASIC, which were derivatives of
Kemeny's and Kurtz's BASIC.

And then there were programmable calculators with variations of BASIC included.

I am grateful for the invention of BASIC.

[KeithB]

And let's not forget Rocky Mountain Basic, I wonder whether it or TrueBasic had control structures first.

[toml_12953]

(11-20-2024 08:31 PM)KeithB Wrote:  And let's not forget Rocky Mountain Basic, I wonder whether it or TrueBasic had control structures first.

Seeing as how HP was on the ANSI X3.60 (BASIC) committee, I'd say TrueBASIC, which was a subset of ANSI BASIC, had features influenced by Rocky Mountain BASIC.

[carey]

(11-20-2024 08:31 PM)KeithB Wrote:  And let's not forget Rocky Mountain Basic, I wonder whether it or TrueBasic had control structures first.

It is interesting that the BASIC dialect used in the HP38g, HP39g, HP39gs, HP40g, and HP40gs feels like a modern full-featured BASIC in contrast to the BASIC-like programming languages in TI (e.g., TI-84) or Casio (e.g., CG-50) calculators.