I suggest teaching how simple commands (like displays) work, and then if he gets that down, you can show basic movement....That is if they want to make a game

So you all say Ti-basic or if you want to start on pc python are the best choice.

Like Qwerty.55 said, it's all dependent on what you know about. To that end, I don't think ASM is "hard," it's just very different, like the difference between sign language and spoken language.

I would never recommend TI-Basic as a starting language, because I soon got hooked on Goto's and other bad habits like not putting an ending quote ("). So I would recommend Python as a starting language, it's just perfect for starting, and it actually comes in handy many times in the future.

Clean syntax, easy to read, etc.

I was going to agree that TI-BASIC is a good starting language, but ephan does make a good point about syntax. TI-BASIC is relatively lax with syntax (omitting end quotes and parentheses brings no harm), but these habits are not ones you want to keep for many computer languages.

But, for calcs, TI-BASIC, computers, Python. Of course, as Qwerty said, depending on how the person thinks and what they know, other languages might be better suited.

I recommend TI-BASIC as well, I think it was my first language.  But Game Maker is a really cool "language".  I put that in quotes because its more of a visual programming environment with only simple language aspects.  Be sure to get an older version (like 4 or 5) because I think it got progressively more complicated and harder to use over time.  Python is excellent, but its a little unconventional in terms of its syntax.  But its very easy to program in, especially for string manipulation and math.  Java is nice in that its probably the easiest language to do lower level stuff in like Audio Input/Output, Graphics, Data Structures, etc.  There is pretty much a built-in library for everything, and when there isn't you can usually find one online and download it.

I'm going to take the opposing viewpoint and suggest that you should not use a calc language as the first language. Here's my reasoning:

I first learned TI-Basic and it was pretty easy as well as whet my appetite for coding. However, when I started to transition to computer languages I found that it nearly crippled my ability to do so. Among my inability to properly understand functions, the biggest issue was, in TI-Basic, you're basically given a collection of different shaped blocks to make stuff with. Pretty simple and not in need of much creativity overall. In computer languages, you're given a bag of sand and told to create your own blocks to use, which being used to having the prefab blocks, I could not easily do at first.

Now that's TI-Basic. I will also suggest not learning Axe, because from my experience with it, it's not similar to C-style languages which make up a majority of computer languages. Axe, to me, is very weird feeling, honestly. I would also assume that users would hit the same "block" problem as in TI-Basic, albeit on a smaller scale.

Lastly I'd like to point out that with both languages, as this happened to me and still is, the programmer might start to feel paranoid about the speed of their code. They start to doubt they could do things fast because they're used to calc speeds, not computer speeds.

I would definitely suggest Ruby or Python to learn the basics then immediately switch to C++ or Java asap.

Just because it's fun to do, here's my roadmap:

TI-Basic -> C++ (failed attempt) -> Ruby -> AutoIt (failed Attept) -> C++ -> Axe (failed Attepmt) -> Z80 (I know the basics, need to practice) -> Haskell (Need to practice) -> PHP (Learning, really cool language) -> Java (Taking college courses this semester)