"I am so thankful for my parents paying an arm and a leg to get me a computer at a young age."

Myself as well. My first computer was an Atari 800XL, tape drive (cassette no less!), floppy drives, etc.

I attribute my deep interest in the IT field (along with my high salary) to their early support/nudging. Thankful, very much so.

Yeah! Atari 800XL with cassette! We had one of those, my favorite game you had to load in by tape was Zeppelin. I was 5 or 6 at the time, so this game was frustrating as hell and probably made me cry more than once.

Video of Zeppelin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBLUmXUprvU

My dad also had a computing magazine where you could transcribe small programs or text based games into your 800XL and make your own simple programs - which probably has a lot to do with why I'm a software developer today.

That and the IBM PC junior. Good times.

Many a night I stayed up transcribing games into my 800XL :)

Still remember my dad opening up the car trunk to reveal the Apple ][ GS Woz Limited Edition. I was hooked.