Comment by RiverCrochet

> And is it absolutely necessary to learn BASIC before Assembly

If you don't have experience programming, learning BASIC before Assembly will be super helpful before you learn 6502.

If you only have experience programming in modern languages (Javascript, etc.), learning the Applesoft BASIC will also be super helpful before you learn 6502, as you'll learn how to get by without ...

A) the following language conveniences:

- function names (it's all line numbers),

- variables with more than 2 letters,

and

B) the following modern concepts:

- function calls (no stack other than for GOSUB, use subroutines with dedicated variables for passing parameters instead),

- scoped variables (everything is global),

- dynamic allocation (you have to DIM arrays with the max size upfront),

- anything object-like like structs or classes (hack it with multi-dimensional arrays)

- other fancy stuff like callbacks, promises, hashtables and any other data structure beyond arrays.

and that will nicely prepare you for 6502 assembly (or any kind of assembly really). The advantage in 6502 assembly is you can implement most of B) yourself if you do need it.