[SoftTalker]

I was in college in the latter half of 1980s. Computers were very much in use at the time for writing papers, and some classes required them for other work. Students were not expected to actually own one, however -- they would go to labs around campus which were basially just rooms full of PCs loaded up with all the common software.

Computer Science courses generally just required a remote dumb terminal, such as a VT100 or ADM 3a. These were available in a few rooms around campus as well.

[UncleSlacky]

In UK universities at least, circa 1990 we had computer labs/rooms which were home to dumb terminals, or if you were lucky, Atari STs running a terminal emulator. Some of us brought our home computers to university, they were mostly Atari STs and Amigas - I actually lugged my Amstrad CPC6128 and colour monitor to campus, but never used it for course work as there was no networking in the dorm rooms. Some new-build rooms had it by 1990, and a few people had PCs linked to it by then, but only used as terminals to the mainframes and minis on the campus network.

One person on my course caused a minor stir by bringing a "laptop" to a lecture to take notes in about 1991 - the keyboard was so noisy that they only did it once!

[ghaff]

I went to grad school for business in the mid-80s. I had a computer but I doubt there were more than a handful of other people in my class who had one. While I was there they went from a very limited computer lab in the basement with a few Macs, a Lisa!, and some DEC terminals to a much bigger lab of 286s off the library.

[dhosek]

I was a freshman in nerd school in 1986. Out of the 8 frosh on my hall, only 2 had their own computers (I was not one of them). I don't think any of the seniors in the singles on the other side of the hall had computers either.