And in eastern Europe, due to economical reasons, its popularity extended well into the 90s. There's a whole group of people that grew up with the Commodore that are a decade younger than their western peers.

Yep. My father build a ZX Spectrum clone for me somewhere around 1991. Few years later he also got Commodore 64 as a gift from German engineers he was working with.

I think both of these machines are really good for learning BASIC: much fewer distractions, you type commands and computer does something.

Still counts! Poor, eager, young, and a bit geeky: C64 was made for those that fell into this category.