Hi,
I'm 34 years old (Born in 1976) . I was born in Concepcion, Chile . I move the Miami,FL USA when I was 14. I wanted an apple when I was a little kid but the good fortune that my father could not afford one of them, he bought me an atari 65 xe with a tape drive. The best investment ever. They bought me a 1050 disk drive a year later and I have been programming ever since I had my first computer , which was the Atari. I remember that when I was a kid, I just wanted a 130xe that my friend had and a modem. Before moving the US, my mom told me to sell the computer with so much software I had. It was very painful. Later when I was here, after some time, I started using PC until I was tired of Microsoft, that I primarily use MAC and some ubuntu. However, my pride and joy are my atari 8-bit computer that I have.
My main A8 system is a 130XE with 1050 disk drive , indus GT drive and SIO2PC (usb) plus some other cool stuff from AtariMax.
I'm so proud of the A8 community that we have, it's incredible. Specially with all the possible upgrades. I'm still not able to keep up with all the possible things I can add to my atari A8. Lately I'm been thinking to get a 1200XL.
Also, I would like to add, that Steve from AtariMAX is the best. He is a great guy to buy things from.
One last thing.... I used to buy most of my stuff (this year 2010) from BEST, but the guy claimed that I was asking for too many quotes compare to the ratio that I was purchasing. He banned me until the end of January 2011 but I said forget it!!! Maybe it was true that I was asking for too many quotes, but as of now, I'm banned from purchasing anything from BEST. So I'm left with B&C and Ebay. Anyways, I just wanted to add this, to make public the official BAN that I was imposed by BEST. Maybe I'm not a good A8 customer
In summary, I love Atari... My heart bleeds ATARI , I'm 34 years old , from CHILE but I live in Miami,FL USA for over 20 years. I was happy to find people from Chile and one from Miami.
I owe my love to computers to my Dad who gave me the Atari, and to the Atari to want me to program. I'm currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Science because I love programming/researching... all of it because of the ATARI
Hope to see more people from Florida.
Francisco