[richardjdare]

I'd like to see such a device, but unlike the Pi, or specially contrived educational environments, the 8-bit home computers were the centre of a growing market for games and software, seemingly only a few steps away from your first attempts at working through the manual that came with your computer. This was a huge motivation for many of us who started programming in the home computer days.

I remember games that had a note on the back of the box asking for programmers to send their work to the publisher's address for consideration. Magazines advertised commercial software obviously sold by one guy out of his house, and featured interviews with programmers who were only a few years older than me. If you owned a home computer and could program it, you imagined you could access this growing and exciting world, and maybe make some money.

[jacquesm]

Great points. The gap between the current crop of huge team produced eye candy infused games vs the machine they run on in its bare state is enormous. There are a few exceptions, but unfortunately they only serve to confirm the rule.