[endlessvoid94]

I totally agree - QBasic was my first language (after DOS batch files!). The fact that it was an interpreter meant you could read all the code for any program you found. Which, IIRC, was via floppy disks from my neighbor and a friend from school.

The web has some of that, but the technology is just so much more complex. The difference between reading the .bas file for SNAKE vs. using the web inspector to understand how gmail works is astronomical.

[efdee]

To be fair, the difference between Snake and GMail is astronomical in itself.

[pjmlp]

> The fact that it was an interpreter meant you could read all the code for any program you found.

This wasn't a granted thing back then.

GW-BASIC source needed to be explicitly saved in ASCII mode.

[JulianMorrison]

A lot of basics compiled each line to bytecode as you entered it. The Spectrum made this explicit with its one-keypress-per-bytecode approach.