Ah, yes. I recall the luxury of a Commodore of my very own (a C128), after using PETs in school. We had a whole three of them at the time, with a shared, dual-floppy drive for the set.
Naturally, our teacher wisely pushed hard on figuring what you could out on paper first.
> Naturally, our teacher wisely pushed hard on figuring what
> you could out on paper first.
Specifically in the case of the Commodores (I grew up on a C128) I find this observation backwards. Sure, if you only had three machines for twenty students then time on the machine was valuable. But on those machines there was so much to explore with poke (and peek to know what to put back). From changing the colours of the display to changing the behaviour of the interpreter.
I think that I discovered the for loop at eight years old just to poke faster!
Naturally, our teacher wisely pushed hard on figuring what you could out on paper first.