In the mid-1980s, my dad bought an IBM computer and a Vectrex 8-bit video game console at about the same time. I often went to the IBM computer and played games like Frogger, Digger, Janitor Joe, Castle Adventure, and Chess. I always have liked things that require using logic skills, and the game called Chess did not come with a tutorial. So I taught myself chess by moving each piece to certain positions and learning via cause-and-effect, while my dad was gone at work. I realized the educational usefulness of video games early on.

The Vectrex console was my first experience using a controller instead of a keyboard. Around that time, the original NES came out and I played the original Mario Bros on arcade machines at various stores. I played arcade games at Pizza Hut and just about every location that had arcade games. But my parents didn't get the NES console until 1987.

My parents' decision to wait resulted in me heading over to my friends' homes. I became a regular visitor, usually with one goal in mind. I went straight to their game (or computer) room to see what PC and console games they had. I'd sit there playing for hours while my friends often felt left out and decided to do other things. I was immature by treating my friends that way, but the games had me (as a kid) totally mesmerized and my friends didn't seem to share an equal interest in video games.

When my parents finally got the NES console, I facilitated several exchanges at my elementary school where I'd ask my friends if we could trade video games every week or two weeks. My interest in video games taught me how to take the lead in doing some things. It also expanded my vocabulary and language skills. It sharpened my eye-to-hand coordination which transferred well to sports. My favorite genre after a year of owning the console was the RPG genre (starting with these series in chronological order: Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy, Ultima) - which actually taught me about money and using critical thinking to reach a goal.

That's pretty much how I embarked in becoming a gamer.

I've loved games since I was 4 or 5. I remember watching my dad and older brother playing various computer games like Prince of Persia and Police Quest 4 (which scared the crap out of me). Then I started playing games like Lion and the Island of Dr. Brain. We also had a SNES which I LOVED. My brother and I would play all the time together or one of us would play and watch the other. One of my favorite games was Yoshi's Island. Since then I've had various other consoles. Now I play on the PC and Xbox 360.

So yeah, ever since I was young I've just loved games, I love exploring their worlds and experiencing their stories and just having plain old fun.

When I was five years old, I got an Atari ST with such classics as Mousetrap, Crack'ed, Beyond the Ice Palace, and Lotus Challenge.

But the real thing was when I got my first PC two years later. It was a 286 25 MHz processor with 2 MB RAM (later upgraded to 4MB) and an EGA graphics card. The first games I played on it were Prince of Persia and Simcity. There was also a .bat application called "sex", a kind of an animated proto-GIF, which I was too young to appreciate at the time.

Lara Croft's boobies.....*shrugs*....

:P

Actually the box art on Duke Nukem 3D, made me buy the system.....(Lara helped) :)

My mother was friends with someone who owned a Greek takeaway nearby. To keep me preoccupied, she would leave the coinbox open so that I could play on the Wonder Boy arcade machine there.

Also, there was a café that I spent a lot of time at the bus station (one my mother's partners in the past was a bus driver) that had arcade machines for Nemesis, Bomb Jack, also Wonder Boy and Chelnov: Atomic Runner.

Also, my father got together with a woman whose two sons had an Atari 2600, so it wasn't long until I wanted a console or computer of my own. In 1990, I got a C64.

Atari 2600... followed by a NES, followed by my first PC, a 486 in the mid 90s. Been a sometimes proud, sometimes reluctant pc gamer ever since.

My very first contact with computers was at the age of 9. My parents used to take me and my brother to a Community/Cultular center in the neighbourhood which had classes of music, painting, pottery, theatre and a computer class. Hehe, after 6 months I was only attending the computer class!!
I remember an Amstrad 6128, an Olivetti computer with 2 diskette drives (great for copying), some pc's and programming in LOGO! (yes, the Turtle with the pen!!!)

Edit: I must add that for me computers == gaming

The Nintendo Entertainment System, bundled with Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros., and later purchases/gifts of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Mega Man 2.

Frequently being over to a friend with one of Atari's keyboard-computer machines (I don't remember which one it was exactly, but I do remember the Workbench interface, though I most likely didn't know at the time what it was called) prompted me to wish for a computer, and in 1994 I got a Macintosh Performa 475 (and subsequently a few pirated games and applications off a friend of my parents who also had a Macintosh and used a BBS application called Hotline, now I'm the one helping him).

I also attended a LOGO course offered by school. We "nerds" had to go to the next bigger town (~20km) and had no regular school on that days. It was interesting, but at that time I was writing BASIC programs with my C64 and had even written my first lines in Assembler.

I've learned mathematics with c64 games, having a crane moving sum-blocks; dropping math-bombs that needed to be defused.

atari (never know the version) quite often playing on my friend house before my father bought it cheap when they move somewhere else and becoming family entertainment which is when everyone already own a snes...

Im not a gamer, just like playing games

I remember LOGO! The turtle in our school was connected via a socket in the wall, so we found it hilarious to make it move so that it would pull its own plug out of the wall.

I was 6 years old or so and my brother bought an Amiga 500, which is now my go-to nostalgia source. PCs of that time were waaaay behind it in terms of graphics and sound. A couple of years later I met friends with a 486 (Wolfenstein and Doom, baby) and C64, which was tapetastic. Didn't hold a candle to the Amiga, though.

My first games were Midnight Resistance (which was OFF THE HOOK) and Arnie (less so, but still blew my mind).

I got a NES (or, more accurately, the Pegasus knockoff) soon after the Amiga. Much duckhunting was done.
Seriously, with a setup like that, how could I not be sucked into gaming?

Parents bought a 386 when I was around 8 with a lot of educational games/programmes which they never told me to play.
My uncle who was a computer engineer had ROTK2 in his PC which I went ahead to play and get addicted to.
Winded up asking him for a copy of it and playing it at home everyday for a few years before Win 95 came around.