Such nostalgia! My first computer was a second-hand TRS-80 / "CoCo 2" [1]. The thing came with a couple cartridge-style games (Downland [2] and Sokoban), but

Such nostalgia! My first computer was a second-hand TRS-80 / "CoCo 2" [1]. The thing came with a couple cartridge-style games (Downland [2] and Sokoban), but to do anything more you had to learn to program. I still remember that old-book smell cracking open the aged parchment in my dog-eared copy of Getting Started With Extended Color Basic [3]. I was around 10 years old, and that summer I took it with me and read a few pages every morning on the bus to summer camp. I was such a nerd. (Somehow one of the older campers found that attractive and briefly became my "girlfriend".) It had an external 5¼" floppy drive nearly the size of a shoe-box, but I got a bigger kick out of using the cassette recorder for storage since you could see it in action and hear the distinct squeal of your data (sounded something like a modem). My friends and I played a make-believe game that emulated adult life (we'd get jobs, use monopoly money to pay ourselves a salary, demarcate homes by taping out floorplans on the floor, etc). I was the "banker" and started writing a program to record deposits, withdrawals and balances. I recall planning UI's by meticulously coloring in squares on a paper grid. Dad complained I should spend more time outside, and maybe he was right. But I grew up, published my first commercial software title, and turned that geeky interest into a fulfilling career. One thing I gotta say, that TRS-80 still booted up faster than any PC I've owned since! [1] My TRS-80: https://imgur.com/a/eC19U94 https://imgur.com/a/eC19U94 [2] Downland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCzhqa-DROM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCzhqa-DROM [3] Getting Started With Extended Color Basic: http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/coco/Documents/Manuals/Hardware/Getting%20Started%20With%20Extended%20Color%20Basic%20%28Tandy%29.pdf http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/coco/Documents/Manuals/H...