1988, dixons in oxford.
i remember being blown away by the robocity demo on the workbench 1.2 A500 they had, and being gutted that my machine came with workbench 1.3 and no robocity!
little did i realise i had one of the very first 1.3 rev6 A500's
i think it cost £399, and a 1084s for £199
--- nostagic history follows ---
i then saved and saved and bought via mail order, a Cumana external 3.5" drive for £69, but the 1Meg ram upgrade was were it was at.
although i didn't have eyestrain from having to use a tv, i couldn't play the more numerous "1Meg only" games and demos. so more saving, and £39 for a ram upgrade later from whats become Electronics Boutique / Game in Oxfords westgate shopping centre, and i had the system that saw me through years of fun times.
eventually tricked out with 3.1rom, 2mb chipram, m-tek020+4mb, AdIDE (helped lift the M-tek over the minimegachip), 20Meg drive, and A570 CDrom. i didn't feel the need to go A1200 as i could outgun a base 1200 even with with fast ram. only AGA eluded me, and that was only for games, so bought a CD32 about 1993
1994, in a fit of stupidity, swapped my faithfull A500 and a stock A2000 for a dead A4000/030 with no keyboard/ram/hard disk. (it was a spare video titling machine used for "The Word" TV show). £90 to fix the A4000, £90 for a keyboard, £120 for four 4Mb 72pin simms, £110 for a 5.1Gb IDE quantum fireball, and £50 for a PLCC 25mhz 68882. then painted it purple with the "AMIGA" resessed logo picked out in silver.
that machine with a cyberstormII/040 and CV64/3D saw me into and out of my only year university ;-)
1998, swapped that for an A4000T
built it into an "ultimate PPC amiga"
2001, sold the A4000T in another fit of stupidity. monumentally gutted.
out into the x86 wilderness untill..
2004, picked up a 2nd hand boxed A1200 off a mate for £40,
2006, old rev5 A500 circa 1987 off the future brother-in-law for nothing
2008, wanted another A1200 as didn't like my blizz030IV sitting there not doing anything, accidentally landed two A1200's and an A600. so thats where i am today.