My first computer was an Apple IIe with the DuoDisk drive, supplemented soon afterward with a then-blazing-fast 1200 bps modem. The Apple-branded one that hung, kinda bizarrely, from the wall. Add an Apple mouse (I recall the hardware took up a whole slot), a Super Serial Card, an Apple 80 column memory expansion card, and it was a dream computer.<p>That is, at least until the Woz-edition Apple IIgs came along a few years later!<p>Like someone else in this discussion, I don't know how my life would have turned out if it weren't for the Apple IIe/IIgs. I likely wouldn't have learned how to program, wouldn't have been exposed to those early glimmerings of hacker culture, wouldn't have gone into technology journalism, and wouldn't have left technology journalism to found <a href="http://recent.io/" rel="nofollow">http://recent.io/</a>. On the downside, unlearning the bad habits of Applesoft BASIC is a life's work! :)