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redwall_hp | on: Usborne 1980s Computer Books
These are actually how I first learned to program, but around 2001-2002, when I was about ten years old. I found a couple of them at the library, and that's when I realized it was something you could just learn...but lacked a BASIC interpreter.

I ended up also finding a No Starch Press book on JavaScript, and porting the BASIC listings to ye olde pre-Node JavaScript as my first foray into programming.

Then I also got a Commodore 64 on eBay some time later.

Retr0id | parent | next
It was similar for me, a little later in the '00s. I didn't have access to any computers at the time, BASIC interpreter or otherwise. Some years later I got access to Visual Basic on the family computer which unfortunately had very little in common!
xp84 | parent | next
That’s super cool. I’m actually surprised if you had a PC in 2001 that it didn’t have QBASIC on it though. I think that was being shipped with Windows at least through Windows 98.

But of course, your solution to that was twice as good for your education than if you’d learned only BASIC so that’s good.

My experience was kind of similar except I was learning in the mid 90s and only had access to various flavors of BASIC, because all the computers my school had were from 1980-1987 or so. When I saw modern GUI computers though, I couldn’t understand how what I’d learned in the character-based world could be applied to the GUI paradigm, so I gave up on programming until the Web and PHP gave me a usable mental model to get back into it.

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vunderba | parent | next
Anyone remember the book "Absolute Beginner's Guide to QBASIC"?

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/absolute-beginners-guide-to-qb...

Like most people, I also learned how to program in BASIC from a mustachioed machete-wielding British gentleman whilst on safari.

flir | parent | next
If my school's library had had Machine Code for Beginners, my career might have been very different. (I'm actually a bit annoyed; I didn't know that existed).

I definitely remember Creepy, Battle and Space.

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nkassis | parent
I had the same experience in the mid 90s. We had a computer lab with windows 98 and VB was around but all the library books were for qbasic and older things. Luckily 98 did have qbasic installed so I was able to use the code.

I then asked my dad for a book on C++. While I managed to make a few things, I distinctly remember getting lost at the concept of the "this" pointer. I really gained programming competency when I discovered python a few years after this. Teenage years I spent most of my time playing with HTML and trying to understand what the heck dynamic HTML was.

I'm trying replicate that path with my kid. We just got him a C64 ultimate (replica of the original highly recommend commodore.net) and these books are perfect for him to toy around with.