1983 - First Computer

We had a 16k Sinclair Spectrum at home - I think it was my brother's birthday present - but that would mean we got it almost a year after they were launched - which seems a long time.
I remember we upgraded it to 48k at some point.
I learned to program on this computer. Basic programs initially, but then I learned assembly language/machine code by poking random Op. codes from the back of the manual that came with the computer.

It's very hard to find a scan of this manual online including the Appendix that contained this, but there are HTML conversions of it if you dig deep enough.

I manually assembled my programs. First by writing them in a notepad. Then I'd get the opcode byte value(s) from the listing above, and finally I would compute the relative and absolute branch and jump values. Then I would type this in to a BASIC program as a list of DATA statements that were read and poked in to memory.
Then it was a case of calling the program - watching it crash spectacularly and cursing because I'd not saved the BASIC program. And starting all over again.

All of this was done on a machine with less RAM than the size of a typical favicon today.