alt Hacker NewsMy first computer was a Microbee, a Z80-based Australian computer made by Applied Technology. I loved that thing to death, and thank my Mum and Dad for buying it for me, and getting me started in a field that I loved.
My school had a VIC-20, later an Apple II, and an enterprising teacher brought in a Commodore PET.
Later on, my friends had ZX Spectrums, Amstrad CPCs (not sure of the model), and lots and lots of C64s. A few Tandy 1000s and Cocos. I was always envious of the great games that they had.
I'm what you'd probably call a "90s kid" but I lived in a rural area. Around 1994, while the kids in more 'normal' places were using Mac LC-IIs with color screens, and I'm assuming others were using Windows 3.1, I was reading the manual cover to cover to learn how to use MS-DOS on a Tandy 1000 and teaching myself Applesoft Basic on a Franklin ACE (Apple II clone). I'm actually really grateful that thanks to lack of money I basically had a "Gen-X" computer childhood, allowing me to learn the command line, and, I think, to understand how computers worked better than those whose first computer experiences were Macs or Windows.