Surely BASIC is properly obsolete by now, right? Perhaps not. In addition to inspiring a large part of home computing today, BASIC is still very much alive today, even outside of retro computing.

Thirty years ago this fall, video game pioneer Atari released its first two entrants in the home-computer market: the Atari 800 and 400 computers. Originally retailing for $1000, the Atari 800 shipped ...

1. Disable all windows except for 'Program'. 2. Keep selecting 'New Line' until over nine empty lines have been entered. The number displayed for lines over 10 will be scrambled.

60 years ago, the inventors of the BASIC programming language actually achieved what they had hoped for: simple programming that is accessible to everyone. At 4:00 a.m. on May 1, 1964, the first BASIC ...