I got into a bit of a chat yesterday on Twitter about what which computer you had as a kid said about you. (Obviously, this would mostly apply to Generation Xers, unless you were a very sad child born in 1990 who had only garage sale leftovers to play with around the turn of the milliennium.) Absolutely no conclusions whatsoever were reached in this matter. My own general and vastly unscientific view is that it seems that those who had Ataris in high school went on to become PC users, and that those who had Commodores went on to become Mac users. This may be based entirely on the fact that I had a Commodore and am now a Mac snob, and my best friend Allen had an Atari and now actually thinks PCs are cool.
Which computer (if any) did you use as a kid? Atari 2600 or Commodore 64? Or one of the less popular ones: Sinclair, Amiga, Intellivision, Odyssey2, something else? (My first computer, before the C64, was a Texas Instruments TI994/a. I loved it something awful but quickly outgrew it.) Do you suffer today from platform nostalgia? And just what the heck does it say about which computer you used as a kid?
(If you have a suggestion for a QOTD/QOTW, feel free to email me. Responses to this QOTW sent by email will be ignored; please post your responses here.)
I was poor so I felt lucky to have my Atari 2600 and a handful of cartridges.
We didn’t own a TV until I was in the 3rd grade (1985), and when I saw my friends’ Intellivisions and 2600s, I felt I was witnessing secret Area 51 alien technology. The first time I saw an NES M82 demo unit at Sears, time stopped as I heard an audible romcom record scratch before it even became a trope.
Adjusted for inflation, that $200 Atari 2600 would be over $850 today. There were kids at my school who couldn’t afford the 90 cent school lunches and had to wear shoes that were literally falling to pieces and duct taped together.
I’m sure someone reading this grew up outside the US, and would consider my family wealthy, I just had to poverty 1up you because as a kid, my family owning a 2600 was as affordable and likely as me purchasing a Ferrari Testarossa.
After relentlessly lobbying for over 3 years and saving every penny, I convinced Santa to deliver an NES on Christmas Day in 1989. My family never owned a computer -I bought my first in 2002, 2 years after graduating from college, and in my life have owned a total of 3 macs (all still working), 2 PCs (both deceased), and zero smart phones.
My goal is to leapfrog the technological generations from 2000 to 2030. Just ten more years to go until we get the implants and the people of Earth raise their collective gazes at last to witness the augmented unreality their negligence has wrought.
that sounds like heaps of fun anyway, all you need is a programming prompt then the only limit is your imagination! =)