i start with a casio calculator which have a small implementation of basic, it has: if..then, for..next,Goto, Gosub, data, peek, poke, ... .this is about 1980 +/-2 .then a german computer called TA ..., then sinclair zx, and with pc compatible (cpu 8088) i begins with GWBasic. to be honest i'm still using the GWBasic style of programming , i have found perl a very good language (philosophical language), but its graphics are slow, it has modules for opengl and ogre, it has win32gui module so you can make graphics with gdi, but from a year i have'nt used it. i'm stick now with purebasic which have infinite number of modules, libs, engines, and you can use it only because its gorgeous canvas gadget with persistent graphics. with its 3D graphics capabilities you can plot small or big colored points and other primitives in 3D space ...there are other one million features.
nowadays programming even in its simplest form are necessary to feel the existence the good way.
(to program or not to program that is the question) .
After watching PureBasic for years, in 2010 I bought it and have finally decided to use it this year.
I suspect that the PureBasic development environment will be my final stop in my search for the optimum programming language.
Although I only really played games on it, or did some word processing for homework, etc. But it was ancient by the time I got it. It was still a fun machine to use, and I just wish it had lasted longer before finally dying, and I had got a chance to learn programming on it.
The only "Program" wrote, was to combined two other programs.. I think one came from Run Magazine, and was a Starfield (nothing fancy just some points on the screen), and then I took the other piece, a Commodore Balloon that moved across the screen, and turned them into a Commodore Balloon moving across a star-filled sky.. It didn't quite work right and I had no idea the significance of what I had done (nor how I did it), but I thought it was a pretty neat trick. Only bad part was the stars did not redraw so it would "wipe" them as they crossed paths..