We were relatively poor back then. I got a Timex Sinclair 1000 after begging relentlessly for it, $99 was a lot to my dad. I was around 13 or so.

Learned BASIC, assembly, a bit of Forth on that thing, and as I grew up branched out to C64 and Apple II’s and PCs, eventually became a professional developer.

It all was enabled by the TS 1000 (and by extension the creation of the ZX-80 and ZX-81).

To steal a cheesy movie quote, that $99.95 little slab of plastic and chips changed my stars.