The First programme written in BASIC and the very first virtual land dispute. All on today’s On This Day from TEST Huddle.
1964 – BASIC’s first programme
At approximately 4:00am (EST), ) at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire mathematicians John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz run the very first program written in BASIC (Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic InstructionCode). The programme is a simple compiler written on a General Electric 225 mainframe computer. Kemeny and Kurtz created the programme language, which is based on Algol and FORTRAN, to teach their students how to programme, using it on the timesharing system, which allows multiple users to run programs simultaneously on one processor. Prior to BASIC, an understanding of programming languages had only be accessible to true computer professionals.
2006 – The First Virtual land dispute
In Pennsylvania in the U.S. attorney Marc Bragg files a lawsuit against Linden Lab, the creator of the Second Life virtual world, alleging that the company shut down his account, wrongfully seizing virtual land worth four to six thousand dollars in real-world money. In counter argument Second Life administrators claim that Bragg violated the software’s Terms of Service by URL-hacking an auction website in order to purchase “land” valued at US$1,000 for only US$300. After two motions to dismiss the virtual land dispute are denied by a judge, Bragg v. Linden Lab will become the first virtual “land” dispute to go to court in the U.S. The case will ultimately be settled before a final verdict is rendered. Though the case is settled, by coming to trial the complaint established that gamer interaction within a virtual world, can satisfy the legal requirements for personal jurisdiction in a legal proceeding.
Images: Wikipedia
