[mathattack]

This would make one think that in the 70's all software engineering was awesome and exciting and everything that was done was cutting edge. The truth is that at this time it was the same as it is today. They were writing machine code (because they had to) and drivers for everything. They used punch cards and time sharing machines. They didn't have GitHub or the Internet so code sharing was not really possible outside your immediate social circle. I think that there were some people then (just as there are today) who worked on exciting stuff, but the majority were just doing a job.

This is very true. It's easy to have some appreciation for being closer to the machine in prior eras, but it is a much better time to be a programmer today. There are many more tools, and much more collaboration available. The time from idea to completed project is much shorter. The ability to scale projects is much higher. The wait time for code to compile and run is much shorter. I can go on and on...