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> Hell, have you even tried to FIND a BASIC interpreter for Windows or Macs these days?

It's not that hard. For starters there's:

Chipmunk BASIC
PC-BASIC
True BASIC

You can even run AppleSoft BASIC and QBASIC in your browser.

Chipmunk BASIC works on Intel Macs, Linux, and 64-bit versions of Windows, including (tested this morning) Windows 8.1, so it should run under 10 as well. The 'B' in BASIC stands for 'Beginners', so why not?

BASIC today doesn't exist in a convenient format like 8 bit micros. You're basically looking at IDEs for VB, or a complete nightmare trying to install an ancient version of BASIC long since abandoned.

Take a look at Chipmunk BASIC. Old-school BASIC that runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux.

See, old stuff that *they* like is important. Working on that stuff is a great idea.

Working on old stuff that they don't care about is clearly a waste of time.

Anyhow, here's a start for you: GCC PRC-Tools Which is likely what you want. Ron's Obsolete Palm OS Computing Information Page has a working link to HotPaw, which is better than nothing.

You'll also want to take advantage of the Wayback Machine to see what's behind all the dead links you're surely running in to.

Or use Chipmonk BASIC. http://www.nicholson.com/rhn/basic/ Yes, we all know that BASIC is evil. But that's how many of us started and it's hard to argue with the instant gratification. Pygame may be a better staring point.

There also was "Alice", a python / 3d environment to teach kids object oriented coding. Python is of course a perfect first language for *anyone* as well.

However, its a crying shame that a good solid programming language, perhaps with game making potential or some other hook for kids, isnt included with every copy of windows.

Oh yeah old school basic for Windows: http://www.nicholson.com/rhn/basic/#5

Its really really old school however.

Go here.... Chipmunk Basic (http://www.nicholson.com/rhn/basic/)

http://www.nicholson.com/rhn/basic/

Try a basic interpreter. Chipmunk Basic looks promising, though i've never used it. Make slashdot the homepage in the browser. Be sure not to let the kids have IE - start them off right with Firefox. Finally - Bookmarks! Most kids will just mess around with the browser, so any educational bookmarks you leave will be a step for them in the right direction.

The PDB format is well-documented, and yes even the built-in applications' field formats are documented, but have you ever tried to decode say, DateBk4's extended fields, or how SuperNames stores links to other records in other applications? The last time I looked at their EULA's by the way, they would frown if you reverse-engineered those extended fields or proprietary record linking formats, and used what you learned in your own application without asking them first. So even if it was technically feasible to obtain the formats, the marketing insight to focus upon the data and make it interchangeable amongst applications as a system-level property, rather than an application-level property, is lacking. If this was wrong as you assert, then please explain why third-party applications use hacks like storing extended information in separate PDBs, specially formatted content in note fields, and proprietary record linking formats.

There's QBCC and there's a linux port of Chipmunk Basic. Both are QBasic compatible.

One common thread here is that many programmers first learned to code in Basic. This may simply say that most of the contributors to this thread learned to program more than 5 years ago. The majority of all computers sold from 1978 to 1995 or so came with a BASIC intepreter included free. Thus zillions of kids could learn to program by just tinkering around in BASIC, and without the need to digest some semi-religious tome on {structure|types|lists|objects|etc.}. Even though the {Logo|Pascal} school claims that this was bad way to start, the ratio of good to bad coders seems about the same, whatever the first language, IMHO. Good coders seem to (mosty) outgrow their childish ways; plus those old rapid prototyping skills come in handy when there's the need to evolve software at "internet speed".

Anyway, one can still start out playing with the classic BASIC language on a linux boxen:

There's Yabasic http://www.yabasic.de/ (GPL'd)

and Chipmunk Basic http://www.nicholson.com/rhn/basic/ (that's mine)

which both have both linux and windows ports. Chipmunk Basic also has a MacOS port which includes sprite graphics. Books on programming in the classic BASIC can easily be found in any public library that hasn't had a huge acquisition budget over the past few years.

Given that nearly every computer sold these days comes with a html and javascript interpreter, and that one can write some simple, instant feedback code with these languages, I expect javascript to be next popular beginning language. All that's missing is a few books with titles like "101 games in jscript"(tm), etc. Who's up?

IMHO. YMMV.