In 1981 : The ZX81 was launched. It was produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Dundee, Scotland by Timex Corporation… tweeted here.
Many memories of wondering what this product was at the time. I was 11 and it took a while before I got my ZX Spectrum and then spent many hours playing Match Point in my room.
What about you? What kicked off your computing?
McGST 
Keep in mind that when I was 11 I don’t think I even knew the word computer. That was 1959 and of course they existed, but certainly not in common usage. I took a Fortran course in university in 1968 and programming courses after. That would have been in 1972. My brother had a Commodore 64. I programmed computers at work and saw no reason to buy one. After all, I could play games at work. Yes on my lunch hour. Does anyone remember Adventure? Or Colossal Cave Adventure? It was password protected such that it would not run except for certain times. It had built-in parental control except for adults. The only way you could get in was if you had the password entered when it asked “Are you a wizard?”
The PC came out in 1981 and of course there were other computers common in the 70s. I started working with the early Macs in 1985 and using a GUI and a mouse made all the difference. So in 1985, I bought an Atari ST as my first personal computer but certainly not the first computer I used.
LikeLike
Had an Atari STE as my first proper(ish) computer- loved it.
LikeLike
Stumbled into an Atari 800XL with companies that were liquidating and donating Atari stuff. Later I swapped it out for Commodore 64 because of the more vibrant (pirated, sigh) games market, but in retrospect between its superior BASIC and LOGO it was a better start – maybe only an Apple II would’ve been better
LikeLike
Started out with a “hand-me-down” Commodore 64. My dad had used it for his bookkeeping business. I got it when he moved on to a PC. I used it mostly for gaming.
A few years later that I was assigned an AT at work, but it would be a couple of more years before I bought my first home PC. By that time, I was well into PDA’s.
LikeLike
going to be honest, i actually managed to get the IT department in the Lodi program to lend me an atari 800. an honest to god 800! it’s still there if anyone wants to use it. thanks for the memories PCS. too bad we forgot the disk drive and assembler lol. it was to teach the kids BASIC and make our own games.
god i feel old. first computer was a windows 95 pc and the first one i owned was an XP. We’ve come far from the days of 500MB drives
LikeLike