If you are somewhat open minded, try BCX. It is free and fairly mature. It was written by Kevin Diggins who migrated from VB to C/C++. It is a Basic to C translator that allows you to write C/C++ programs in a simple readable basic code. You can mix in C or ASM too. There are a number of free C compilers that will take the translated code. The helpfile that comes with BCX is great, and there are lots of code sample files. Learn a good solid basic and C to boot!

I am not selling you anything, the whole system is free!!!

visit: http://bcx.basicguru.com/