Exactly. My first exposure to programming was on one of those cheap toy computers. My parents bought me one of those when I was in elementary school and after

Exactly. My first exposure to programming was on one of those cheap toy computers. My parents bought me one of those when I was in elementary school and after getting bored with its built-in games I noticed a button labeled ”BASIC.” Around the same time I noticed a book in the school library on BASIC and put the two together. That cheap Christmas gift turned me on to computers and programming and though I’m now writing a thesis in Scala rather than hangman in BASIC, I’m glad I had that toy to get me started.