This is why I’ve long argued that BASIC is the most consequential language in the history of computing. It’s a language for noobs, sure, but back then most everyone was a noob.

Because BASIC is the first language that many computer scientists learn, it has been, for generations, a mother tongue of technologists.

BBC Basic did a lot of things, and often quite well. During the early 1980s, it extended the BASIC languages with easier loop structures, like IF/THEN/ELSE, and ran faster than Microsoft's version.

Learn computer basics such as using a mouse, identifying computer parts and how the Windows Vista operating system works. Practice time is included in the session.

Long before the days of laptops and smartphones, Thomas E. Kurtz worked to give more students access to computers. That work helped propel generations into a new world. Kurtz has died at 96.

This three-hour classes teaches basic operations of a computer, how to use the Internet and email. Classes are held in the Wirt Public Library computer lab. Cost is $5 due at registration.

Thomas E. Kurtz, who translated the exhilarating power of computer science in the 1960s as the coinventor of BASIC, a programming language that replaced inscrutable numbers and glyphs with ...