[madengr]

The kid down the road from me in rural VA had no indoor plumbing, but had a VIC 20.

I eventually got a C64, but that was after my dad brought home a IBM PC for a few months to do chemical calculations in a spreadsheet. He said it was revolutionary that he could put this machine on the factory floor reactor and develop plug-in-chug calculations for reactions.

He also contracted a local EE to develop a CNC marine buoy winding machine based on the PC. I remember talking to the guy as a kid and he said it was compiled BASIC. It interfaced to the gantry motors and servo system via a giant, custom control board he made.