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(work-in-progress.)
- Bell Laboratories demonstrated first remote access to a digital computer using standard phone lines at McNutt Hall connected to Bell Labs’ Headquarters in New York.
- John Kemeny appointed full professor (age 27).
- John Kemeny appointed chairman of the Mathematics Department (through 1967).
- John McCarthy becomes assistant professor.
- A small group of scientists (including John McCarthy) gathered for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence, which was the birth of this field of research.
- John McCarthy moves to MIT as a research fellow in the autumn (moving to Stanford in 1962).
- John Kemeny creates DARSIMCO (Dartmouth Simplified Code) for the IBM 704; found little tracktion due to the arrival of FORTRAN at MIT the next year.
- Thomas Kurtz joins Mathematics Department (recruited by Kemeny).
- John Kemeny, along with Thompson and Snell, published Introduction to Finite Mathematics.
- Published Finite Mathematical Structures.
- Purchase of the Librascope General Precision (LGP-30) desk-size computer (officially purchased as a piece of furniture).
- One student wrote a FORTRAN-inspired language called DART for the LPG-30.
- Published Finite Markov Chains (with Snell).
- Stephen Garland, Robert Hargraves, Jorge Llacer, Anthony Knapp and Thomas Kurtz create Dartmouth ALGOL 30; based originally on ALGOL 58 and then ALGOL 60.
- Stephen Garland and Anthony Knapp developed a "load-and-go" system known as SCALP (Self Contained Algol Processor).
- During a visit to MIT, John McCarthy asked Kurtz suggested using time-sharing for their efforts to bring computing to the masses. In an experiment to test the concept, students were broken into groups of five and given turns on the LGP-30 using SCALP. Computer time of 15-minutes per group. It was found that students could generally complete their programs in two or three "turnarounds" during a single session suggestion that an interactive system allowing hundreds of students could be handled using a single machine.
- (Elsewhere) ASCII standard begins in May.
- John Kemeny and Sidney Marshall (high school student) create DOPE (Dartmouth Oversimplified Programming Experiment). This experiment was utilized by a single freshman computing class.
- Published Finite Mathematics with Business Applications.
- (Elsewhere) ASCII standard, first edition published.
- (Elsewhere) The Teletype Model 33 is introduced; costing less than other teleprinters and terminals such as the Friden Flexowriter (used on the LGP-30) and IBM 1050. Of note, based on ASCII (7-bit) instead of the established Baudot code (5-bit) - leading it to influence the de facto standards that developed over the next two decades.
- Kemeny begins working on the BASIC compiler during the Summer; borrowing time on an existing GE-225 (access provided by General Electric).
- Michael Busch and John McGeachie begin working on the OS (during the Fall).
- Project officially begins September; draft specifications published in November.
- Hardware arrives on campus in February, operational by mid-March with official hand-over April 1.
- John Kemeny and John McGeachie ran the first BASIC program on this system May 1st at 4AM. At this point, 3 terminals were in use.
- First BASIC Instruction Manual
- GE-225 replaced by a faster GE-235. (Side note, GE began to refer to the hardware configuration at Dartmouth as the GE-265; eventually to be called the Mark I Time-Sharing System)
- By the fall, 20 terminals were in use.
- Group of teachers at the University of Minnesota College of Education began using Dartmouth's system via long-distance calls (eventually switching to a more locally available Minneapolis-based Pillsbury Company GE computer).
- ALGOL 30 used as the basis for an implementation of ALGOL 60 on DTSS.
- Approached GE for support with ongoing development; GE offered the new GE-635 in September. To house such a machine, a new building would be needed.
- BASIC, Third Edition
- The Kiewit Computation Center opens in December.
- Thomas Kurtz appointed as Director of the Kiewit Computation Center at Dartmouth (through 1975).
- While waiting for the GE-635, the GE-635 at Rome Air Development Center was used to develop MOLDS (Multiple User On-Line Debugging System)
- GE-635 operational; using MOLDS new operating system was fully functional in September. (GE-265 sold off.) GE goes on to sell this configuration as Mark II Time-Sharing Systems.
- BASIC, Fourth Edition
- (Elsewhere) ASCII revised.
- (Elsewhere) HP releases the 2000A Timeshare System including HP Time-Shared BASIC that supported up to 16 users logged in at once. This combination is almost identical to the DTSS setup except that HP's BASIC used as semi-compiled tokenized format for storing programs.
- (Elsewhere) Twenty Minneapolis–Saint Paul area school districts and the College of Education founded TIES (Total Information for Educational Systems) to provide time-sharing service on a HP 2000, training, and software.
- Phase II development ("the ideal operating system") completed in March - system officially named the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System.
- Sidney Marshall produced an implementation of ALGOL 68 for DTSS.
- (Elsewhere) ASCII format for Network Interchange described.
- (Elsewhere) David Ahl joins Digital Equipment's expanding educational sales division. At this point, the PDP-8 was combined with educational language FOCAL; which Ahl found prospective customers were not interested. Ahl found no interest on the part of DEC management or software development departments to produce a version of BASIC; additionally, they weren't interested in supporting FOCAL on other of their own machines. He also noted increasing hostility to any idea of allowing others to produce a version of FOCAL. In order to compete, he hired a developer to create BASIC-8 and, by doing so, the combination of the PDP-8 with BASIC-8 (including his ported examples) as an immediate best-seller. This combination would later be referred to as Edusystems. (Side note: DEC would ultimately offer five different BASICs for the PDP-8; each one making up for limitations of the original minimal implementation.)
- John Kemeny becomes president of Dartmouth 1970 (through 1981).
- BASIC, Fifth Edition
- (Elsewhere) With the release of the PDP-11, a new and greatly expanded dialect of BASIC was introduced... BASIC-PLUS.
- BASIC, Sixth Edition
- (Elsewhere) Work begins on what would eventually become The Oregon Trail (using an HP 2100).
- John Kemeny presided over the coeducation of Dartmouth; additionally, instituted year-round operations.
- Three-year deal with GE completed, GE gifted the machine to the college. The two teams (Dartmouth and GE) remained in contact and several good-faith attempts were made to continue relationship; little collaboration occurred and partnership officially ended September 20th.
- Although other languages were available on DTSS, at this time 98% of its programs were written in BASIC.
- (Elsewhere) The People's Computer Company publishes first newsletter in October.
- (Elsewhere) David Ahl publishes 101 BASIC Games.
- (Elsewhere) MECC (Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium) founded.
- Work begins on ANSI/ECMA "Minimal BASIC"
- (Elsewhere) Creative Computing magazine introduced (David Ahl).
- (Elsewhere) David Ahl purchases 101 BASIC Games from DEC, re-launched as BASIC Computer Games; this book goes on to become the first million-selling computer book.
- Thomas Kurtz appointed Director of the Office of Academic Computing (through 1978).
- January, First draft of Minimal BASIC published.
- Stephen Garland creates SBASIC (a BASIC pre-processor providing structured-language support).
- (Elsewhere) First issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal published in January.
- December, ECMA "Minimal BASIC"
- (Elsewhere) MTS (MECC Timesharing System) installed running on a Control Data Corporation Cyber 73 mainframe.
- Thomas Kurtz and Stephen Garland started a Computer and Information Systems master's program at Dartmouth.
- ANSI X3.60-1978 "Minimal BASIC"
- BASIC, Seventh Edition (primarily by Stephen Garland).
- As Chairman of the Computer Science Advanced Placement Committee, The College Board, Stephen Garland was involved in developing the original Advanced Placement Course in Computer Science... opting for PASCAL (not BASIC).
- BASIC, Eighth Edition (primarily by Stephen Garland).
- (Elsewhere) MTS touts more than 950 programs in its library.
- Kemeny and Kurtz co-founded True BASIC Inc.; based initially on BASIC, Seventh Edition.
- Kemeny and Kurtz published Back To BASIC.
- ANSI X3.113-1987 "Standard BASIC" ratified.
- The Birth of BASIC
- BACK TO BASIC - The Future of Computing Begins at Dartmouth
- The Future of Computing - The Next 50 Years
- Dartmouth Celebrates BASIC in Past, Present, and Future
- BASIC at 50
- DTSS Dartmouth Time Sharing System Reborn!
- DTSS Emulator
- Dartmouth BASIC Interpreter by Dancresp