Summerfest and Atari

John Gruber kept the Commodore, Atari, Apple discussion alive:

The best computer in the 1980s was whichever one your parents bought you.

So true.

It makes me wonder how regional and time specific some of these trends were. In 1980, in school outside of Boston the first computer I saw was a Commodore PET (and dares about POKE 59458,62). Then we moved to Milwaukee and suddenly all my new friends loved Summerfest, the Violent Femmes, RUSH, and were hoping to get an Atari 800. Who knows that that first computer would have been if we hadn’t moved?

In my case, the much maligned Atari 400, with its peanutbutter-proof keyboard. It really was the worst. Even the Sinclair ZX’s chiclets were better. It was on that horrific keyboard that I’d burn a truly insane amount of time typing in code from magazines.

Lave and Wenger in action. These were the first moments of learning what it meant to be a programmer, to speak (type) an incantation that transformed reality. It was magic, exciting, and a perfect tween activity because even more than music and D&D, adults had no idea what you were doing.