content: I started programming on a CBM PET 3008 back in 1979. The BASIC was pretty crap compared with even Sinclair BASIC but it could still do some cool stuff. The problem was that BASIC 4.0 on the C64 didn't have any controls for graphics or sound and it all had to be done with PEEK and POKE which was incredibly primitive. Simon's BASIC improved the situation a lot giving the user commands for drawing objects, sprites etc and driving the SID chip more easily. Such a pity that so few people who got the C64 ever went on to program them. Personally, I got a BBC Micro which had a really excellent BASIC interpreter, including an inline assembler for machine code and all the necessary commands to drive the graphics and sound. I learnt a lot on that and it has lead me to a very good career as a programmer. The C64 really ended up being a games machine and little else sadly.