Many compilers/IDEs were commercial and too expensive for kids who just wanted to try out programming This is true, but on the other hand, every installation o

Many compilers/IDEs were commercial and too expensive for kids who just wanted to try out programming This is true, but on the other hand, every installation of MS-DOS came with some version of BASIC, so there was really no friction, just type QBASIC and you're immediately in really quite a good IDE with excellent on-line help.