cently founded by Eduard Stiefel, where he worked together with Ambros Speiser on developing the first Swiss computer ERMETH, and developed the programming language Superplan (1949–1951), the name being a reference to Rechenplan (English: computation plan), in Konrad Zuse's terminology, designating a single Plankalkül program. He contributed especially in the field of compiler pioneering work and was eventually involved in defining the languages ALGOL 58 and ALGOL 60. He was a member of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) IFIP Working Group 2.1 on Algorithmic Languages and Calculi,[1] which specified, maintains, and supports ALGOL 60 and ALGOL 68.[2]

ALGOL was developed jointly by a committee of European and American computer scientists in a meeting in 1958 at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (cf. ALGOL 58).

Basic was one of the first coding possibilities in the 8bit and also the ‘OS’. the interface to the computer. The shells were ‘basic’.

LOAD “”",8,1

With the second generation of homecomputers. The linenumberless basic came up like GFA-Basic etc. This was a new step and brought basic on the level of Pascal and co. 

of course mainframe computing was only possible for universities, students or big companies. creating workstation like lilith or next were a middle thing between mainframe and personal computers. 

Mostly by announcing it on usenet. That had a tight-knit community of Amiga programmers that was easy to reach. Then on Fish disks and Aminet as well. At some point, print magazines started to cover it with courses etc, and I got invited to speak at conferences about it.

It got fairly popular, to the point where at some point a popularity poll was held somewhere on the internets, and E came in second after C/C , but before Pascal and Basic. Probably a biased sample, but still :)

Walter Saxer at the ETH, and from 1945 to 1948, a mathematics teacher in Glarisegg and Trogen. In 1948, he received his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from ETH with a well-received thesis on complex analysis.