[dTal]

What it really needs is graphics.

The marvelous thing about QBASIC was that you could just dive right in with PSET, LINE, CIRCLE etc, which capture the imagination in a way that "Hello World" doesn't. The only modern environment I know of that makes it that easy is Processing.

Writing graphical games, fractal viewers, cellular automata etc in QBASIC was how I got into programming AND recreational mathematics.