[conductr]

In your life, those years, it did not hold you back except when you compare yourself to a very small group of people who 1) had access 2) took advantage of said access. I'm imagining you probably compared yourself to the kid in War Games (1983) and wish you had the same access to hardware/modems/etc.

Truth is, at least anecdotally, most kids that had access back then didn't really dive into it. Hacking and programming in general was not something everyone was doing. Your interest alone gave you an edge even though access came later in life.

Present day, I think it's similar but different. Access is very high. Interest is still low, but definitely much higher than it was and increasing. The kids now who grow up consuming apps/social/etc are not helping themselves at all. Just like how getting cable TV "technology" in the 80s helped no one. The kids who regularly use a keyboard are the kids who have both access & interest to actually be a maker. And for most makers, the keyboard part still comes later like it did for you. What has increased is the support system for learning. Schools are getting involved, tons of startups revolve around learning to code, etc and of course the social stigma of being a nerd has flipped entirely. Not only have nerds become cool, or at least tolerable, computers do not necessarily equate to nerd like they used to.

That all said, in absolute terms there are more makers now than in the past and there will be more. Also, I feel, most of the low hanging fruit has been eaten. Which at some point means all these makers will need/want to solve bigger problems than we have to date and this is what's really interesting about the next couple of generations in tech.