Funny you mention that! My first programming language was TI-BASIC, on an old TI-83 Plus. That language is wonderfully simple, slow enough to watch the execution happen almost in realtime, and tolerant enough that for the longest time, I didn't know what the "End" token did, and my programs would crash after a while, infinitely recursing into If blocks because I simply didn't know any better. Good times!

After a while, I figured out that all the best games were written in this mystical "Assembly" stuff, which ran a lot faster and could, with some wizardry, do greyscale! I taught myself z80 programming without ever stopping to think that it might be difficult. Later, I realized this is a Junior level college course in a great many degree programs. Who knew? For me, it was just another step on the path to making games instead of doing my math homework.

The kind of BASIC that did fit on 8-bit computers is a non-intimidating low-level programming language. All variables are global, you have jumps and subroutines, but no named (multi-line) functions and conditionals most of the time end in jumps that go over a segment of code.

Conceptually, it's incredibly simple and I think this is its most important contribution.