[rob74]

Remember the days when all home computers came with a BASIC interpreter preinstalled, and that was the first thing you saw when you started the computer? Later generations (Amiga, Atari ST) also had BASIC included with the OS. Not that familiar with the original Apple Macintosh, but from what I read that was the first computer to ship without programming tools. Windows then followed suit, and today all OSes ship without developer tools by default. Of course they're just a download away, but those are mostly tools for professional developers, so not really beginner friendly.

Also, the limitations of 8 bit (and 16 bit) computers also made them more approachable. I "designed" some cool-looking sprites (actually they were called "players") on my Atari 800 back in the day, although I'm not good at drawing, so I would be hopeless at producing something more hi-res...

[p_l]

"Classic" Windows usually came with DOS which included BASIC, with the main difference being that in Windows 95/98/Me it no longer had an editor, IIRC.

Original IBM PC in absence of other drive would attempt to boot from cassette and then drop you into similar BASIC interpreter - the "GW-BASIC" included in DOS was the same except it was shipped completely as file on disk drive instead of being ROM.

NT didn't have included programming language before NT 4.0 SP4, when WSH was added, it was also part of Outlook 97 and IE 3.0.\

The original computer to ship without any programming tools that was targeted at general population was Apple Lisa, I seem to recall mention of at least one loud consumer complaint if not lawsuit based around expectation that general purpose computer should have some tool included.

[Narishma]

> with the main difference being that in Windows 95/98/Me it no longer had an editor

It was on the CD but it wasn't installed automatically.

[otabdeveloper4]

Linux comes with Python included. (Python is the new BASIC, and explicitly designed to be so.)