Why not BASIC? (Score 2)

When I was in highschool (I talk like it was all that long ago) we were taught BASIC, C, and ASM. It makes sense to start with Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, and why complicate matters by starting 'em on a multitasking OS? We'd get far better programmers if they all started on C64's and similar (Apple II, Coleco Adams, etc)... plus CMD is still selling C64's www.cmdweb.com for under $150. Could fill a lab with C64's for the cost of 8 new x86 workstations... Not that you'd learn anything more practicle learning C64 BASIC, but if you continue working on a C64 you're definetly going to learn proper memory management. I seem to remember 16k blocks being quite large, strange, something I wrote recently allocates this amount for a trivial buffer... huh... I should pull my C64 out of the closet to re-learn the value of a kilobyte...