The TI-99/4A was the first computer around here that was affordable (wanted the Apple II but that was priced way out of my league). I never got any cartridges, used the family TV as a monitor (so no evening computing) and for the first month or so had no tape deck (so programming on paper and retying at every session).

The included manual for programming BASIC was extremely well written, and it's sprites made it very easy to write your own games. I remember starting with a multi-player 'snakes' variant, a 'defender' clone, an unfinished chess game (ran out of memory), and top down microcar racing game.

I also remember longing for the UCSD/Pascal cartridge as all (library) books I read used Pascal in their coding examples, but it was too expensive.

I later switched to the ZX Spectrum for which I had HiSoft Pascal, and a burnt in bare black&white monitor sold for scrap from an old arcade game.

> used the family TV as a monitor (so no evening computing)

I was allowed to program during ad breaks, typing in code I wrote out while the family was watching a show. :)

I too remember the manual as being very well written. As I recall, it had tables on the back with frequencies for different notes, and foreground/background colors which went well (and not well) together.