Agreed with your overall point, but I have to mention that out-of-the-box C64 BASIC was so crippled, most game related I/O had to be done via POKE and PEEK, i.e

Agreed with your overall point, but I have to mention that out-of-the-box C64 BASIC was so crippled, most game related I/O had to be done via POKE and PEEK, i.e. not really BASIC and as low level as it gets. Nevertheless, it was my first programming language ever.