I remember when the BASIC programming language came on all computers. Most people did little more than play with it, but many people started a lifelong interest in programming or even made money writing programs with it. Emergence BASIC is a modern attempt to recapture that "anyone can program time" with a modern Windows operating system. The language is simple enough that anyone can learn to write simple programs, but complete enough for professional programming.
When I bought my first computer, text adventures like Colossal Cave and Zork were my favorite games. While "interactive fiction," as modern text adventures are called, are no longer commercially viable in this age of games with film-like graphics (and budgets), a large number of free text adventures are published by fans every year -- hundreds are available at The Interactive Fiction Archive.
I can remember when every computer came with a copy of the BASIC programming language. Heck, my first computers (a VIC-20 then a C-64 then an Apple IIe) booted into BASIC. DOS and Windows 3.1 computers came with a powerful BASIC even though they, fortunately, did not boot into BASIC. Unfortunately, programming for all versions of Windows required complex object oriented languages that required too much effort for the average user to learn enough to code even a simple program, so BASIC disappeared from the operating system and became an expensive add-on for professional programmers.
