What intrigued me about this book was this statement addressed to the reader: "And with this Self-Teaching Guide, you don't even need access to a computer to learn BASIC -- you need only this book and a pencil." This statement blew me away!

I suppose the authors could make this claim because Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code (BASIC) was designed as a simple language which could be learned in a few short hours.

Albrecht et al developed the programs in this book in Microsoft BASIC on a MITS Altair 8800B computer. This turned out to be the same version of BASIC that was used in my TRS-80 Model I Micro Computer. Radio Shack called it Level II Extended BASIC.

The material in this book is presented in short sections called frames, following the programmed learning style championed by behaviorist, B. F. Skinner. Each frame introduces something new about BASIC, asks the reader a question, and lets the reader fill in the blank. Correct answers are given following a dashed line.

Questions at the end of each chapter let you know if any frames need to be repeated. A final self-test provides the student feedback about his or her overall understanding of BASIC.

To make a long story short, I'm glad I didn't try to learn BASIC programming without the aid of a personal computer. The computerless approach taken in this book didn't cut it for me.