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Retronauts

742: Dartmouth TSS and the Birth of BASIC

Retronauts

Retronauts

Games, Leisure, Technology, Video Games

4.52.3K Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2026

⏱️ 80 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This computer network speaks BASIC! Kevin Bunch, Dr. Joy Lisi Rankin, and Annette Vee talk about the Dartmouth Time Sharing System, the birth of BASIC, and how it brought computer games to the public.

Retronauts is made possible by listener support through Patreon! Support the show to enjoy ad-free early access, better audio quality, and great exclusive content. Learn more at http://www.patreon.com/retronauts 

Transcript

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This week on Retronauts, print.

1:02.3

Hello World. Hello, and welcome to another edition of Retronauts. I'm your host, Kevin Bunch, and I hope you're excited to get into another fairly obscure topic, because that's kind of my thing here. No, you should absolutely stick around. If you are interested in computer gaming, computer history, pre-internet networking, and what is likely the first computer language that was actually easy to learn.

1:51.7

So to that end, we are celebrating the genesis of the basic computer language and the Dartmouth time sharing system, which are sort of two intertwined threads, very influential

2:02.5

on public computer usage and gaming. And before we get into that, I'd like to, you know,

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