Very quick and passionate, great account! Me too I'm a computer programmer and started very similar (just like in Russia, in Argentina there were clones of the Sinclair Spectrum, just a few years before your time I believe). So copying code from magazines was the thing to do.

At some point, the Spectrum was actually so popular, that an FM radio station had a weekly program where they would broadcast a game that you could download by plugging the radio into your micro computer.

Fun stuff! Thanks for sharing.