BASIC put programming in reach of a wide range of people. Steve Wozniak himself documented his personal progression from implementing a Breakout game with gates (see [1]) to implementing it in 6502 assembly to implementing it in BASIC [2]

You could have that BASIC experience on a minicomputer like the PDP-8, 11, or 20 which you might have at a high school or college earlier but with microcomputers you could have it in elementary school or at home.

[1] https://thedoteaters.com/?bitstory=bitstory-article-2/breako...

[2] http://blog.hardcoregaming101.net/2012/09/basic-history-of-b...