I had to check whether my memories of my first programming language (AppleSoft BASIC) were correct and they were: that language did not offer an ELSE statement. There were just IF expr THEN cmd and IF expr GOTO line. I don't remember being shocked or overly impressed by the existence of else when I first encountered it in UCSD Pascal, but I do have vague memories of having to write code in AppleSoft BASIC that either was structured with IF this... IF not this or perhaps IF this GOTO 40, do what would be in the else then goto the line after the code starting at 40, then the code for the if statement.