My first computer was a Commodore 64. I was about 10 years old when my parents gave it to me. It came with a cassette full of games on both sides, all pirated. I typed LOAD''*'',8,1 into each one. For those that didn't work, I calibrated them with love, inserting a tiny screwdriver into the datasette until the stripes came out perfect. I wasn't going to miss playing Impossible Mission because of a bad calibration! In time I learned to use BASIC and even made my own animations with pure code; but not without first passing through LOGO and its turtle, to introduce myself to programming logic.
I wasn't a digital native, but I got as close as one could get to that label in the late 1980s. I owe everything that my life was afterwards to that computer, for better or worse, because I became obsessed with everything that could be achieved behind a keyboard. And no, this isn't about my personal story, but I tell it because it could very well be the same as that of any of the kids in this gallery, today possibly as old as I am. What must have become of their lives? How significant were their childhood computers in their future? Questions we'll never be able to answer, because we don't know any of them. But we do know you, so... tell us, what was the first computer you used in your life and what was the first thing you did with it? What did it mean to you, friend?
Gallery: Kids and Their First Computers
They look like the kids from Don't Copy that Floppy.
A TRS-80 in the classroom.
You can use the closest thing to that program with this emulator for TRS-80 Model III.
