To amplify that point:  A lot of what were then often called home computers bootstrapped into a BASIC interpreter.  To pick just a few: the Oric, the BBC Micro A&#x2F;B, the Master, the Electron, the Commodore PET, the VIC-20, the TI 99&#x2F;4A, and the QL<p>The Jupiter Ace bootstrapped into Forth.<p>None of these were akin to learning to program with the first step being the giant leap from zero to compiling one&#x27;s own kernel.  That is not because they didn&#x27;t have kernels.  Several did, coming with actual operating system kernels that underlaid the interpreter.  QL SuperBASIC, for one example, was an applications program running on a multi-process multi-tasking single-user handle-based I&#x2F;O operating system named QDOS.<p>The learning to program had as its first steps the rather lower bar of the 2 or 3 line program that printed a string, or asked the user for input, or drew a coloured triangle on the screen ...