I think I found one of the original 999$ stands from my grandparent's place.

This was on the expensive side for computers back then.

Most of us who got into tech after being 80s computer dorks probably started out on Apple IIe, C64, Atari 800, TRS-80 CoCo, TI99-4A, stuff like that. Those were a few hundred on the high side.

Next stop might have been something like a 286 or early 386 (or IIc/gs, ST or Amiga if you didn’t go PC), which would have been closer to this in price. You usually didn’t start on one though and the gateway-drug boxes were much cheaper.

Your point still stands—rural and inner-city areas weren’t exactly the hotpoints. But it did extend pretty far into lower-middle. When console gaming briefly collapsed between 2600 and Nintendo, these smaller computers were what kids got to play games on.

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