I started with 2K, (the "minimal" Acorn Atom).

I expanded the memory 1K at a time to the maximum of 12K of RAM.

Two chips for each 1K. I can still remember which ones: code "2114", 300ns static RAM chips, 4 bits x 1024 (hence needing two chips per K).

I suspect my early trajectory is similar (and my parents couldn’t afford the pre-built version of the ZX81, so I learnt soldering at 11), except my jump was not to the Spectrum, but to the Atari XL because Dixons had a sell-off-the-stock deal where you got a floppy-disk drive + the computer for £100. So I went to 64k after 16 :)

These days I live in Sunny CA, I’m almost as senior engineer as I can be at Apple (and I’ve got a good chance of getting rid of the “almost” over the next couple of years), and I’m going to retire early as soon as the kid goes to college. Not bad for a docker’s brat from ‘pool.

Can’t say I’ve noticed much Ageism here at the fruit company. I know people who’ve been here for 30 years (I’m coming up on 20) and my direct boss used to work at NeXT.

My first computer was a TRS-80 MC-10: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_MC-10 A less expensive version of the TRS-80 Color Computer. The worst part wasn't the 4k of RAM, but that I had no storage device for it so would spend entire days writing programs only to have to turn it off and lose it all.

Thankful, less then a year later I went the Commodore route starting with a VIC-20 with a cassette drive, then C64 with a floppy drive, then an Amiga with a hard drive before fulling moving into Wintel PCs in the 486 era.

Some of the early 2001 PETs had them IIRC. I dont know what it was, but when I took computers in highschool there were still a few of the old ones in the class that had 4K and crappy keyboards and I think and there was something that didnt run on them. Hence it was a rush to reserve the fancy new 4xxx series.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_PET

Ooooh, the nostalgia looking at those pics.

My first computer was a TRS-80 Model III, which had 48k of RAM. That's an embarrassment of riches compared to 4k. High-res graphics mode was 128 X 60 (black and white only) and no sound. I remember typing in a BASIC version of Conway's Game of Life, and each generation on that size of grid took about 20-30 seconds to update. Good times!

The Vic-20 had about that much, what a glorious beast it was.

My Casio PB-700 still has 4K of RAM. Got me through college.

For me, the TRS-80 Model I (4k). I later "graduated" to the TI-99/4A (16k) and Commodore VIC-20 (5k).