Among John G. Kemeny's many accomplishments is the co-invention of BASIC. Beginners All Pupose Symbolic Instruction Code was the first programming language many of us learned. It was a simple language developed for non technical people to extract quick solutions from computers. This slim volume is based on a series of lectures delivered at the American Museum of Natural History in 1971. Much of what is discussed here is "time-sharing", a concept pretty much lost, except that it carries on inside of central processors everywhere. Time sharing is no longer done between users on a large system, but between programs inside a small one. BASIC will always be one of my languages, even if it is now about as useful as Latin. ( )