Re: In the UK...
Yes, a plethora of CP/M machines. My first weekend job, I think I was 14 at the time, was refurbishing and repairing computers for a company dealing with bankrupt stock. I got to play around with a lot of great kit, that I would otherwise never been able to use/afford.
A lot of Apple ][s, some with CP/M boards, a Shelton Signet, a little UNIX box and a dozen different makes of CP/M, even one using a 5" (no, not a mistype) disk. I have fond memories of playing Colossal Cave, Mugwump and StarTrek (on a VAX 11/780).
I used my home computers for programming a lot and learnt machine code and, later, assembler - back then, with 1K, there was no room for assembler, you just entered the byte codes.
At school, we never got Apple, RM or BBC, we had PETs and the accounts teacher bought a bunch of C64s with accounting software. At college, they still had PETs, then switched to MS-DOS IBM PC clones
Biting the hand that feeds IT
