I actually used my Commode-Door 64 for business - utilizing a cheap word processor proggy called PaperClip. Also for a while used a MIDI sequencing program with it written in Basic. Worked really well for what it was.
Of course, what really slowed things down, other than the 6502 processor, was the glacial pace of the serial floppy drives. Met a guy once who modded his drives to parallel and boy those things flew - compared to their speed as serial drives. He also had boxes full of modded processor chips known only by their painted colors...god knows where all those came from.
And let's not forget the blissful days on hooking up to CompuServe at the blistering dial-up speed of 300 baud...
Michael
LOL! And to think I complain today when my broadband cable lags ever so slightly during primetime evening hours. Yup, sometimes I miss the old BBS days.
Back in 1983 or so I bought my dad a "portable" Radio Shack computer (about the size of small, thickish but narrow book) w/ about 4k of memory and built in basic. this machine used some 4 bit japanese microprocessor. so, to have have fun i programmed it to make random music (!) lots of fun with only 4k !!! so, i wander off to texas, then to chile.
scene changes to 1993.
i discover my dad was never interested in computers and had after a month or so given this radio shack portable to my sister, who used it as a calculator for a while then put it away in the drawer.
since she didn't use it either, i asked her to give it back to me and she was happy to oblige.
so, i turn on the device, and hit run -- and my silly music generator program starts to run!
and this with the original batteries i had bought in 1983 or 1984!!!! i was stunned.
i wrote a keyboard chord program for this beast and still use it occasionally (doing bit graphics on the narrow LCD display ;)
CompuServe? No way. QuantumLink, baby! My screen name was "Lepton Man".