[villagetinker]

My first 2 computers were DIY (solder in all the parts), an RCA COSMIC ELF 1802 based, and a little later a Zilog Z-80 based, both had 4K of memory (around $400 each!!), both used a cassette recorder for program storage, and both were programmed in hexadecimal machine code.

Then came a Radio Shack model 1, I built my own expansion interface, and a speed doubler circuit. This was expanded include my first hard drive 5meg at a cost of around $400.

Then came an Apple 2, actually a black apple (made by Bell & Howell?), had to get one of these as I had a side job writing custom software, and the customer had Apple PCs.

Then there followed a string of increasing larger IBM based PCs over the years. While I did do some custom computer interfaces for the side job, in general I gave up building my own after wire wrapping a 128 kb memory card, around 50 ICs, and lots of connections, but worked like a champ for years.

Continued to write custom software, this time for my employer (gave up the side job), and eventually ended up with a patent of some of it.

I still dabble with some of the small single card computers.

I honestly do not remember the internet provider, both I do remember the joy of going from 300 baud, 1200 baud, then 28.8k baud, and all the way to 56k baud.
fond memories.