Yes. I got started on the Commodore 128D, after I got bored of all the games mine came with. Would I have done so if there hadn't been a BASIC manual on my shelf and an interpreter baked into the system? Dubious. I then learned Pascal once I got my first PC, because Turbo Pascal had been included by the previous owner. The first compiler I had to fight for was Turbo C (had to convince my mom to ask one of her colleagues for a copy). But by then, I'd been programming for over 3 years.