Laser focus to the main topic, I remember that the Sinclair appeal in Latin America was the price and that low barrier to entry enables much more success, like top Spanish magazines focused on the Sinclairs and the Commodores. It is important to memorialize that even if your family can afford a more expensive device most conscious parents found that these were expensive game devices more than a computer. Even programming was about being fun, not an industry! The first one I saw was a father who was an accountant and complemented its kids fun with calculations he should do, so the father learnt how to develop software in the same way, kind of, you learn how to program an HP-15C calculator [0]. I knew several accountants at that time that followed that route before even using VisiCalc.

Thank you for highlighting Rick Dickinson [1], it's probable very difficult to communicate to newer generations how form factor or plain aesthetics played in the 80s where a desktop PC is just a box. This clearly include calculators like the HPs ones. For the ones with sensitive clear memories, touching and using this devices make an echo in your spirit. Even when you think that the ZX81 had a membrane keyboard, there was something "mystic" about finding devices with such different design. We might even use the "kinky" term for devices like the Casio CZ-101 [2].

The Show Must Go On [3].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-15C

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Dickinson

[2] http://weltenschule.de/TableHooters/Casio_KX-101.html

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Show_Must_Go_On_(Queen_son...

How the ZX Spectrum became a 1980s icon