When I was 9 years old I had a Commodore 64, my best friend Raymond had an Atari 800XL. I think we had the best of two worlds in the 8-bit era. While classmates had the Mattel Aquarius and ZX Spectrum they never had the good games as the Atari and Commodore had.
Read my hommage to my 8 bit C64 vs 800XL in Zapp!64.
Raymond donated his Atari 800XL to me. Thanks!
Seeing the 800XL his better BASIC and some games than my C64 I was able to appreciate the different systems. Till now I still do this. I never excluded a brand or system in my advice. Use the best system for the job. The Atari/Commodore war or the PlayStation/XBOX war… not for me. I have them all and appreciate the systems for what they can offer. Also in my professional consultancy time I never said no to Unix, Linux, Microsoft, IBM, etc… if they could offer the best solution.
Accessories and expansions:
Atari 1050 Floppy Disk Drive
Lotharek SIO2SD v1.3
Software:
Nintendo Donkey Kong Junior for Atari home computer