You can tell the pioneers by the arrows in their back
I worked for a kitty-litter company that was rolling in the dough for various reasons. We had 3 networked S-100 machines with dual-processor 8-16 bit CPUs (Z-80 & 8088) running a dual-processor aware CP/M (MP/M 8-16) that was able to schedule both 8-bit and 16-bit CP/M programs. Plus we had a nifty $6,000 40MB hard disk (Pragmatics/Fujitsu PD-40M) that came in a cool see-thru visible plastic enclosure. You could see the 12" platters spin, and the stack of heads move. People used various flavors of VT-100 compatible Televideo and other terminals over serial.
Edit: this was 1984 or so, so we were bleeding edge. The IBM PC was introduced while I worked there.
I do miss that company, my boss, and my co-workers.
My roommate brought Linux home from NASA on 40 floppies and we set up a UUCP node with netnews.
Anyway, after being burned by new technology, or the latest version of crappy old technology, I'm a laggard now. I insist on useful features and a reason to upgrade before buying-in
For example, I didn't buy my electric motorcycle until they had real motorcycle suspension (not off-road bicycle stuff) and ABS. ABS is a must-have since it's my main transportation, rain or shine. I have been bitten by various software bugs but the company has stood behind its product.
I held off on SSDs until the "they die at the drop of a hat" furor quieted down.
I'm a generation behind on Intel processors so I could get a cheap machine. I'm only water cooling it for noise, not performance.
I did however buy the very first Android phone as my first smartphone.