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My first attempt at a website was an auction site that went online about a month after eBay. Sorry, but I hate your classmate. 
ETA: Did you read Compute magazine?
I don't recall what magazines I read, but my first word processor I typed in the machine code from a magazine, and it may have been Compute. I saved the typed in program on a casette tape!...
I had a small BASIC program for the VIC and C64 published in Compute in '84 that POKEd machine code into memory and then executed it. If you wanted to use it, you had to type in all those numbers a byte at a time in DATA statements and save in on a cassette drive. Fun stuff! 
... which reminds me of another anecdote: I was in the basement of the Smithsonian History and Technology museum in D.C. (now just called the American History building, I think), where that had parts of the ENIAC on display, the first "general purpose" (programmable) computer developed in the '40s. One of the parts was a mobile console with a bunch of knobs on top, one of which was labeled "Speed." I turned it, and it came off in my hand! I looked around, and there was nobody else to be seen. For about two seconds -- okay, maybe more -- I considered how cool it would be to have the speed control from the world's first computer... then I put it back and left quickly before I changed my mind.
And "XT clone" reminds me of one of the World's Greatest Corporate Blunders -- IBM thinking that the Big Blue label on the box was all they needed, so why not just buy an OS from Bill Gates. 
... which was a small, really cheap computer with a membrane keyboard and 1KB of memory, I think, and the TV screen showed 32-character lines. There were hardly any programs available -- I can't even remember any. I had forgotten about it because it was pretty close to useless.
Seems like it took me hours on my commodore 64 learning to make the text change colors and blink... how exciting 
After that I wrote most of my term papers (and a great American novel... 
) using vi. I don't recall how I got started, but I can surmise they were looking for fools to test the system. I still have some of the original documentation handed to me.
At some point I remember sending an email to someone across the country and getting a reply right back. Wow! I was still using Western Union telegrams to communicate urgent matters overseas then, because phone service was too expensive and unreliable. At the time the entire University was connected to the internet by the equivalent of a 56k modem which everyone shared.
Email changed everything.
When I first signed up to DU I was still using a highly modified version of Windows 98 SE but I soon switched fully to Linux, which was like coming home again.
The "ed" password makes me laugh. I once used a four letter password, all lowercase and easy to type with one hand, on a low privilege account that had been assigned by a professor newly infatuated with "educational" software. Someone stole my password, probably as they passed glancing over my shoulder. The next time I tried to log in I was locked out, the password had been changed. It amuses me to imagine the thief learning he could run nothing more than the most hideously boring "educational" software ever devised. I was always careful with other passwords, past reasonable precautions into paranoia.
With it's intuitive graphic user interface, cute little icons, and mouse control, it was touted as the computer for anyone - well, if you had $10 grand.
Steve Jobs told the rapt audience "I wanted to offer a new thing that had two features: easy enough your mother could use it, and bold enough that all our competitors would say "Oh SHIT!"
If only I had had the money to buy Apple stock back then. 
My first was this unassuming bit of tech:
Still in use today.
... running my finger down the left side of the numeric keypad.
made from a 386 chip. It was given to me by Andy Grove. Yes, that Andrew Grove.
Good times.
I couldn’t get past that pronunciation!
