Beginners All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. Easier to use high-level programming language that allows a user to interact with a program while it is running (being executed). Although developed for instructional purposes, it was adopted by Microsoft corporation for its DOS (as QuickBasic) and Windows (as Visual Basic) operating systems and underlies its application software as the control language. Invented in 1964 by US math professors, John Kemeny (1926-1992) and Thomas Kurtz (born 1928) of Dartmouth College.