IIRC (it’s been a while) I played with a Sinclair being demo’ed at Kmart. Truly hated the keyboard. I wanted the TI 99/4a but it was ~$400. A few months later the 99/4a price crashed to $99 and the parents bought me one. Wrote my first BASIC programs on it, saved to cassette tape.

About 10 years ago I found the 99/4A in storage. The KB was also terrible compared to any keyboard these days, but still better than the Sinclair.