I started programming on a TRS80 CoCo @ school. My parents got me a CoCo2 when I was 7 ... I learned a lot from that machine. I used that up until 1986 when my dad surprised me with a Commodore 64. I used that up until 1991. I still have both of those :-). I remember getting a disk drive, speech synthesizer, and one of those multi-cart expansion things for the CoCo for $50 when a local Radio Shack was clearing that stuff out.
The C64 is an awesome machine. I’d love to know how many careers that breadbox launched :-). While the CoCo was a better platform for education (and had a better 6809 processor), more people were familiar with the C64 ... I learned basic hardware interfacing and other stuff from a lot of local users. I also remember using “Super C Compiler” on the C64 ... it was total garbage, but it introduced me to the language I still use to this day for writing SW (I mostly design logic for “big” FPGAs).
I couldn’t contain myself the first time I saw an Amiga ... yeah, I’m a nerd :-). Looking back, I cannot imagine how that machine never caught on here in the USA. The bang for the buck that you got from an Amiga was off the charts. It had incredible AV capabilities and an ahead of its time OS.
I’ve started digging into an Atari 800 and Atari ST that I found on the cheap (both needed repaired, but it was easy power supply related issues). I like the 800’s graphics system a bit more than the C64, but the audio (POKEY) doesn’t hold a candle to the SID :-).
I can’t see how the ST could outperform the Amiga :-). They’re very similar architectures, but the Amiga’s AV chipset blew it out of the water.
Yep. My first serious code was extensions to the Tandy Color Computer ‘Disk Extended Color Basic’ ROM written in Moto 6809 assembler with the ROM copied to the upper 32K of the 64K RAM memory map. Oh man, I miss the old (Early 1980s) days.