Another thing we can glean from these records is how expensive/labor-intensive it was to produce them. If we find that in a certain time period, people were only writing about business and government as opposed to personal correspondence or frivolous things, then we can assume that the medium might have been costly at the time, and/or that people did less-official communication through media that were less durable, like paper or the brain of a messenger.
QB was one of the earlier languages I played around with, too, actually, and only ten years ago. I think it was an excellent environment for learning to program. It was simple, with many built-in functions for graphics and audio—everything a growing game programmer needs. It also had a pretty good editor, with documentation and examples only a right-click away. The now-defunct QB4All community was also very friendly and helpful.
Furthermore, I’d say that having an underpowered but batteries-included language helps focus you on the goal of making a thing, rather than the process. It also encourages hacking, to circumvent the language’s restrictions. Could you ask for better?