I can't agree more with the author. I'm 20 now, and for a non CS major, have a very deep interest in programming that I can only attribute to BASIC programming.

I can't agree more with the author. I'm 20 now, and for a non CS major, have a very deep interest in programming that I can only attribute to BASIC programming. If you calculate the years, I wasn't even born in the days of the commodore 64, the earliest OS I remember is Windows 3.1. But even then I was too young to comprehend what a computer was. What truly got me started was Texas Instruments. 7th grade: I was a TI-BASIC pro. Wielding my TI-89, I learned more about graphing calculators than any kid should have, ported existing games from TI-83 to '89s and '82s, and instead of solving tedious math problems by hand, I would write FOR loops in BASIC to do my work for me. There is something truly simple and zen-like about BASIC on a calculator that makes it (imho) one of the best languages to learn "programming" on. In that sense I mean learning all the basics of what variables, functions, if/else statements, loops, ... etc. By the time I made it to my intro to programming (Java) course in college, I barely had to go to lecture and easily pulled an A. So for parents/teachers trying to get young kids into programming, get them a calculator with TI-BASIC for the following reasons: * fixed screen size -- you can easily make visual ascii games and use each character as a "pixel" * full documentation = right in the back of the instruction manual! * do maths! -- if nothing else, learning how to program functions to do often used math functions is reason enough * community -- when I was at that age, everyone had a graphing calculator, and everyone would transfer games and programs with those little transfer cables. I became (in)famous as the kid with all the games and programs and kids would even ask me to write and port games for them. There was also a decent community online full of other people trying to program in TI-BASIC as well. I could easily program a few helpful math functions and share with my friends to help them and get that sense of instant gratification that I created something to help the world around me. Hopefully the era of TI-BASIC isn't over, anyone know of the current status of graphing calculators in middle/high schools?