Editing Dartmouth BASIC (section)

===Developing the concept===
During a 1961 visit to MIT, they were introduced to the [[PDP-1]] and its recently completed experimental time-sharing [[operating system]]. [[John McCarthy (computer scientist)|John McCarthy]] asked Kurtz why they did not use time sharing for their efforts to bring computing to the masses. Kurtz returned to Dartmouth and told Kemeny "we should do time sharing", to which Kemeny immediately replied "OK".{{sfn|Kemeny|Kurtz|1985|p=3}}

In an experiment to test whether the concept was workable, students were broken into groups of five and given turns on the LGP-30 using SCALP.{{sfn|Kemeny|Kurtz|1985|p=7}} Computer time was broken into 15-minute sessions and each group of five was given one session and then turned it over to the next group. It was found that students could generally complete their programs in two or three "turnarounds" during a single session. This clearly suggested that an interactive system would allow hundreds of users to successfully use a single machine.{{sfn|Kemeny|Kurtz|1985|p=4}}

The arrival of the [[Teletype Model 33]] [[teleprinter]] using the newly introduced [[ASCII]] over telephone lines solved the problem of access; no longer would the programmers have to submit the programs on cards or paper tape, they would now use the Model 33 to type directly into the computer. All that was needed was a new machine that was fast enough to host a time-sharing system, and a simple language for the programmers to use.{{sfn|Kurtz|1981|p=519}}

When the topic of a simple language began to be considered seriously, Kemeny immediately suggested writing a new one. Kurtz was more interested in a cut-down version of FORTRAN or ALGOL.{{sfn|Kemeny|Kurtz|1985|p=6}} But these languages had so many idiosyncrasies that Kurtz came to agree with Kemeny:

{{blockquote|If we had corrected FORTRAN's ugly features, we would not have FORTRAN anymore. I reluctantly had to agree with John that, yes, a new language was needed.{{sfn|Kemeny|Kurtz|1985|p=9}}}}

Over time, four key elements emerged; the system would use time-sharing, a new language would be needed, to get users onto the system new courses would introduce programming as an adjunct to other subjects, and finally, the terminals would be open to all users.{{sfn|Kurtz|1981|pp=519-520}}