It was attainable on lawn mowing money. I was 12 when I picked up one. A few games on cartridge, which was reasonable compared to the Atari/Intellivision game

It was attainable on lawn mowing money. I was 12 when I picked up one. A few games on cartridge, which was reasonable compared to the Atari/Intellivision game consoles at the time. As a bonus, you could create/type in games. I started with a tape drive to save the hours of peek/poking around. Eventually floppies became a thing (dang that was spendy at the time). That 300 baud modem and all those glorious MUDs and news groups.