When I was about five years old, I moved from Salem, Mass (where the witches are from), to Brookline, Mass, a city surrounded on three sides by Boston. My first big memory of that time was when I went to the park behind our apartment on Beacon St., and met a kid named Joey Grand. His bike broke when he got to the park, and me and my mom helped him fix it.

We went on to become friends. Now, my folks didn’t have a ton of money, but we did have enough to move to this (fairly wealthy) town. Joey’s parents had quite a bit of money. His father was a doctor, and mom was a lawyer. They lived on a street in my town called Buckminster Road. This was where all the super-fly houses were. They lived in a modest mansion, but a place that was “nicer” than any place I had been to at that point in my life.

Now Joey was VERY into computers. His parents got him all types of computer stuff. He had one of the first Atari Computers in my town. I mean, this dude was programming and making video games way back then. This was like ‘82, ‘83. For a while, the only way I could experience this Atari Universe, was to go to Joey’s place, and watch what he was doing, hoping I’d get a chance to play some games myself.

At some point, my parents actually got me the first computer above. It was an Atari 800xl. Now, this computer (by 80s standards) could do a ton of stuff. All I really cared about though, was that you could actually put the Atari 2600 game cartridges in it. So basically, I could play Q-Bert, Missile Command etc. I had no patience for programming. I still don’t.

Alas, I somehow eventually got the computer in the second picture above. The Atari 1040st. I still pretty much just played video games on it. Eventually, after I left home, my moms sold all my old stuff. I was probably away in some city, and she probably told me I had to come get the stuff, and I probably didn’t. I’m still kind of bitter about it, but I’m trying to get over it. Part of this purging-of-angst process is reminiscing about these old things I used to have when I was young. Thus, this story came to me.

If I can find him, I’m going to do an interview with Joey Grand. He was up on tech at a VERY EARLY point. We got heavy into hardcore music (me, my other friends, and Joey as well), and I got into drinking and doing illicit substances, and the “computer life” kind of faded away, but I always look back at that time with wonder.

By the way, these images were jacked from The History Of Atari Computers Article On PC World.