Well, I started with Delphi (aka Pascal) Pretty simple to understand, and its written in English, instead of with punctuation. I've only done console apps, and it doesn't have as many power features with such as VB and C++.
There's a free compiler/editor available at
http://bloodshed.net/devpascal.html, same people who made Dev-C++ compiler.
Oh, and what was used to write these two programs? Delphi