Must have been around 1997. My dad was in his 40s then and had never programmed or learned coding, but is a tinkerer at heart and used to love to make small IC

Must have been around 1997. My dad was in his 40s then and had never programmed or learned coding, but is a tinkerer at heart and used to love to make small IC devices after his day job (which was not related to technology at all). He learned it, loved it so much, and created so many nifty little pieces of software - a file encryption program, an alarm clock, a stop watch, tiny fun games etc. He used to be so excited to show me his programs (I was 7 or 8) and helped me to pick it up as well. Later he started learning C++ to write more advanced programs, and although he did create some programs, I could see the complexity putting him off. Just the knowledge that that was the real programming, and that he was not enjoying it any more discouraged him, and he stopped coding altogether. It makes me sad. I wish he could have stuck with Basic and just created more cool stuff with it. There definitely is just something so cognitively easy about QBasic.