Quiet around here

[Art]

You can use the Arduino platform with your own hardware and also reap the same benefits, such as being free
I couldn’t agree with the “strong in the programming” part. It’s quite the oppositte.
All of the important stuff you’d need to understand to use any real C compiler is hidden from the user to prevent them breaking things.

That said, I still maintain that BASIC is a good starting point from which to learn C.
Every BASIC program can be easily ported to C. It’s just C that has some features that can’t be ported easily to BASIC.
Ported is even a strong word. You can change the syntax slightly (in most cases), and the BASIC becomes C.