teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC

________________________________ From: Toby Thain <toby at telegraphics.com.au> ?A well known fact in some circles. And this is why they both bloody rock! Both are dead easy to get started in (alright most FORTRANs I know of make you format your code properly, but what's wrong w/that for a beginner's language?). BASIC let's you be more sloppy (not so good a thing). I don't know about melding FORTRAN w/assembler, probably no more difficult then in BASIC, and which of us didn't get into that w/our Commy 64s and cheap pc's? ?For most people assembler is something of a dog to learn, especially on your own (but I did it w/the right text - yes text, not something typically found on bookstore bookshelves. Self teaching yourself assembler w/something by Sam's or whatever was a total exercise in frustration). But those that stuck it out found that all that crap sort of "clicked" 6 months to a year down the road. Granted if you started w/BASIC, and I was very young, the "hardest" part (it seemed) was having to send directives to the assembler. It was just a pain to me. It's almost the same every friggin time (though not always). I guess I was just lazy and spoiled and has something less then an ideal background (er, in BASIC). I just wanted to get down and dirty. Spare me the details. ?But as for data types, control structures, etc. in BASIC, who needs that w/an introductory language? A lot of people would get turned off if bogged down in all that. If you're in your early teens anyway. ?Oh if I had my way, every computer would have BASIC in firmware or on disk. You betcha.