You know, interesting thread. Some years ago, not all that long ago actually, I was trying to introduce the concept of programming to my son, he was about 11-12 yrs old at that time. I struggled to find an easy IDE type environment that would make for a simple type of rudimentary programming, sort of along the lines of what I experienced writing my first BASIC/QBASIC/GWBASIC programs...LOL, ahh, those were the days!!!
Anyways, I came across the Visual Basic mention on-line as well, but nowhere was I actually able to find anything handy. We eventually settled on QBASIC and that was fun. Other Windows based environments were availabe, such as Python for example, and since they appeared a lot more digestable to my kid that's what he pursued.
So that begs the question: given the age of this type of stuff, has any of it actually gone to that "abandon-ware" status? There certainly are vasts amounts of previously commercial software that has goen down that path...