Whatever happened to our hobby?

[commodorejohn]

I think it happened because computers got more internally complex as their UIs got simpler, and thus the people who wouldn't immediately gravitate towards hacking had far less incentive to try it and see if they liked it. You pretty much had to know at least some BASIC to do things on an '80s home computer - today you can generally operate a computer without even being able to read. It's a sad but probably inevitable consequence of the drive to bring computers to mass use in the '80s and '90s.

Fortunately, some of us still care, and while it's sad that we don't have so many people to share our experiences and passions with as we used to, the machines are still here and, for the most part, still working

Nothing is truly dead if even one person still cherishes it.

[commodorejohn]

"You cannot expect the soul of a thing to remain when you are constantly strangling every cent out of the body" – J. Golden

Ooh. I'm savin' that one.

I too lament the passing of this early age of computing but it was inevitable that a common standard had to be decided upon (enter Bill Gates, Intel and Microsoft). I think without the global rise of Microsoft the internet would have never got out of the bedrooms of geeks and computers would have remained fragmented and specialist. I have been in employment for the past 13 years largely thanks to the success of Windows.

Quite to the contrary - it was the Internet that drove the mainstreaming of modern GUI desktops, not the other way around. You can tell that just by looking at how much hell broke loose when Microsoft decided to one-up the competition by including a browser with the operating system, or all the cheap-ass PCs sold with an "e" or "i" prefixed and a 56K modem in one slot.

Whenever I used to suggest to them why not try writing you're own programmes or create some music or artwork, the answer I usually got back goes along the lines of "Why !!! when someone else writes the stuff for us and creates the music we like to listen too, why would I want to bother doing something boring like that and anyway I don't have the time..." (I don't bother asking anymore)...

Unfortunately, this is less a computer thing and more the fact that media companies have been training the new generations to be passive consumers of whatever they shovel out for years now...I'd probably be the same way if I wasn't such a shut-in isolated from the popular culture as a kid

[commodorejohn]

Sorry for wording this so strongly, but in  essence all you're doing is increasing the space for consumption, rather  than re-engaging people with the power of computing. The idea isn't to  dumb down the interface to give people the basics that companies think  they want, it's far better to give people tools and let them find ways  to use them for their own benefit.

+1000 on this. Increasing the omnipresence of empty-headed thin clients designed to run vendor-approved app-store software (and only that) is the last thing that's going to get more people to appreciate computers as computers instead of appliances.

But don't expect to become a millionare today as a bedroom programmer. Those times are indeed over.

Are they, now?

[commodorejohn]

Thus, the people who got a computer to do those things will switch to different devices. That's okay.

It's okay in that they have something simple that meets their needs, yeah - but at the same time it's sad, because there's really nothing about these devices that would push them out of their comfort zone to discover other things that can be done with a computer.

[commodorejohn]

The hobby is still here. I'm sure I am not the only one here that built his own PC.
Thats more hobby to me than just buying a Dell.
Upgrading it here and there with a better Graphics card for gaming or 3d art.
Maybe even installing a car cigerette lighter in a drive bay. The hobby is still here just smaller and different.

Ehh...I'm all for assembling one's own PC (cheaper and better than buying a pre-built, every time!) But it's hardly the same thing as working with the old machines, in my opinion - even on user-assembled PCs you're still usually running an OS that puts you layers and layers away from the hardware and doesn't even come with a programming language...

[commodorejohn]

Yeah, but that's only if you run Linux, or install that stuff on Windows. The old-school stuff has something built in. (And not just BASIC, either...) It's a message from designer to user: "This is your computer, learn how to make it do what you want it to do."

[commodorejohn]

Doesn't everyone? :lol:

Heh I'm weaning myself from Windows XP gradually (I'll be damned if they're going to get me to move to 7 or 8,) but you know what they say about old habits...