[gumby]

Having lived through that time I find this article extremely accurate and focused on the important stuff.

I didn’t pay much attention to the PC at that point (I was programming Lispms, Dorados and KL-20s) but it was impossible to ignore.

[criddell]

In 10th grade (1985/86), I had a friend who worked in a small computer store. I was into computers so I dropped in one time to check it out. He introduced me to his boss and after a brief conversation he asked if I was interested in programming. I was. He loaned me a PC clone , let me borrow his car to get it home, and I was off.

I had exaggerated my knowledge (and my boss clearly knew that) so I skipped school the next few days and dug into the amazing manuals and got up to speed on DOS, on Clipper (a DBASE III compiler), and edlin and finished the task in a couple of weeks.

I took the pay and bought the computer and wrote Clipper programs for the next few years. Those nights spent staring at amber text were so satisfying. I’m very grateful to have been given that opportunity.

[skeeter2020]

>> I took the pay and bought the computer

This was such a common experience for devs in these days! Even very experienced devs like Andy Hertzfeld talk about building software in exchange for hardware. We would have just spent the money on sw/hw, so it was just simpler :)