[Chipmunk BASIC](http://www.nicholson.com/rhn/basic/ http://www.nicholson.com/rhn/basic/) is a nice console-usable BASIC on most platforms. You can work with it

[Chipmunk BASIC](http://www.nicholson.com/rhn/basic/ http://www.nicholson.com/rhn/basic/) is a nice console-usable BASIC on most platforms. You can work with it line-numbered, or structured, and has some graphics and sound support in the Mac desktop version. I started on BASIC on the TRS-80 Model I in 1980, and it was a great introduction. That said, newbies are probably better off starting Python (use IDLE for a decent REPL & editor), type `from turtle import *; reset()` to get a graphics window, and learning a nice language from the start.