
If you grew up celebrating Christmas, the experience of waking up on Christmas morning and discovering a cache of otherwise unattainable goodies is one that you will never, ever forget. My heart is pounding right now just writing this.
To celebrate that timeless feeling, I decided to round up 10 photos of kids on Christmas morning opening up classic computers of the 1980s. We’re talking Commodore 64, Atari 600XL, TI-99/4A, IBM PCjr, Apple IIc, and more. Many of the people involved in these photos generously shared their memories of the event and what that particular computer meant to them (they usually meant quite a bit).
When you’re done reading, feel free to tell us about your favorite Christmas computer memories in the comments. Did you ever receive a computer for Christmas? How did you feel about it at the time?
(This story was originally published on Dec. 21, 2011.)