[robrain]

As a child in the 80s I was exceedingly nerdy. My loving and generous parents did nothing to discourage that. Indeed they encouraged my nascent interest in computers by regularly updating my ZX computers (80->81->Spectrum->48K etc.) and then Acorn computers. All gratefully received.

But then I was offered a C5 as a potential Christmas gift. "It's a Sinclair, you like those" was the approximate reasoning. But even I had to draw the line. There's only so much bullying one person can take. I was used to being laughed at for my fashion choices, my social awkwardness and my lack of sporting prowess. But a C5 would have been the final nail in the coffin.

Ungrateful? Certainly. But I think I made the right choice.

[alexfoo]

> As a child in the 80s I was exceedingly nerdy. My loving and generous parents did nothing to discourage that. Indeed they encouraged my nascent interest in computers by regularly updating my ZX computers (80->81->Spectrum->48K etc.) and then Acorn computers. All gratefully received.

Yeah, I reminisced a bit in the thread about his death 5 years ago.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28564456

I did also get to play around in a C5 that they had at a secondary school that my father was teaching at (either Bassingbourn Village College or Collenswood School in Stevenage), must have been some time in the late 80s.

> There's only so much bullying one person can take. I was used to being laughed at for my fashion choices, my social awkwardness and my lack of sporting prowess.

School in the UK in the late 80s was brutal.

[jamiecurle]

That cane was no fun. It was around for one year when I was in juniors before it got banned. I can remember as clear as the day at the start of September us new boys were taken into the toilet by the headmaster (lovely guy actually) and given a demonstration of what waited for us should we mis-behave. Pink Floyd's "The Wall" was in the charts and it was a perfect experience of 1980s english schooling.