You should check out FreeBASIC and Qb64. Maybe you can revisit some of those memories. :)

I remember learning VGA programming in C and assembly language how it was instrumental in helping me finally grasp just how low-level C really was. That's when I finally realized what pointers really were and just how useful and dangerous they could be.

sounds like you went through a similar routine to me. I had the Norton book - which was excellent. I had second hand or pirated copies of everything though.

my first thought on pointers was 'this can't be right because it is too dangerous, i can write a program to do anything!'