Well I know the thread is titled young coders, and though I'm not the oldest in here I'm far from the youngest.

I started out with this lovely little thing:



Oh yeah, Sinclair ZX81. At the time, you purchased it as a kit that you had to solder together yourself. My mom later got me the 16kb memory expansion for it. It had its' own weird version of a BASIC interpreter, and recorded programs onto regular audio cassettes. It was, in short, an absolute piece of crap...but at the time I really enjoyed it.

However, the thing that changed everything for me was when my grandparents pooled some money together and got me what is still to-date the best present I have ever received in my life:



I still have two of these with all original cables, two 5.25" FDDs, a Datasette, and a fast-load cartridge...in full working condition 27 years after they were released. Now that's quality control!

Sadly, after that is when IBM took over the market. I still occasionally bust out one of my C64s and rock some Choplifter, though. (lol)