My first computer was a Spectrum+, £99 from Curry's, bundled with a tape recorder, still got it!
I was as useless then as I am now at playing games so I used to hack the games and see what would happen.
I was in the motor trade at the time, one day we were having an open evening at the showroom, I wrote a program for the punters to play with which would work out the monthly payments for them, been writing programs ever since.