My first brush with computers was at primary school - a Sinclair ZX81, brought in by the maths/music teacher, Mr Scruton. He demod some apps and games, but the head teacher insisted that we all look away during the loading sequence, as the it was known that the flashing lines could hypnotise young children.
After I enthused about it, my step father bought one and I spent many a happy hour playing games on it. It wasn't until we upgraded to the Spectrum that I got bitten by the coding bug - BASIC was my first love, and remains so to this day. I wrote many games, small programs to help with homework etc but my parents thought it best if they banned me from using it as there was no future in computers, what with them being a passing fad and all.
I still rip the piss out of them for that one to this day.
When I was 15 I saved up my paper-round money and bought an Amiga 1000 with 512KB expansion from a mate who was upgrading to an A500. I wasn't allowed on that either, as it was deemed to be "not a toy" and "not for kids your age."
Fortunately the whole family broke apart and and I went my own way the following year, and took it with me. Best thing that ever happened to me, in retrospect.
