I noticed Elon Musk posted this morning on X that his first computer was a Commodore VIC-20. That same machine was part of our kids’ education in the Montgomery County, Maryland public schools back in the early 1980s.
At home, our first computer was an Atari 400 — the one with the flat membrane keyboard. Not exactly suited for touch typing.
Somewhere along the way I got a modem that let me get online, which led to joining CompuServe and getting active in HamNet, the amateur radio forum. One of the reasons I subscribed to CompuServe, if I’m honest, was to read the San Francisco Chronicle — and in particular, Herb Caen’s column.
At the time I worked for IBM, so when the first IBM PC launched, I was one of the early purchasers. The Atari 400 was retired soon after. But I sure had a lot of fun (and wasted a lot of time) on that first computer.