[screwedup]

Perhaps I'm just glorifying an age I don't remember, but I'm somewhat jealous of a time when computers weren't black boxes - everybody who owned one had to buy separate components, do bits of physical maintenance, and write code.

[jacquesm]

Maybe there is room for some kind of 'accelerated history of computing' where you get to replay the last 40 years or so.

Just like in school we start you out with arithmetic and progress from there it might make sense to see the computing world through some kind of compressed time curriculum to increase understanding and possibly avoid the re-learning of some rather painful lessons from the past.

[bandrami]

I got my first computer in 1983 (a TRS-80), and at that point the old codgers were complaining that computers had gotten too commercialized and that the purity of the old hobbyist days had gone. They were probably right, though it certainly seems hobbyist now.

I wonder if the success of the Raspberry Pi is an indication a lot of people do still like hobbyist computer building, though?

[drblast]

Oh the manuals that came with the machines...they had schematics in them and explained every part of the machine and what it did. It was glorious.

It would also be difficult to do now as the machines are more complex. But if you imagine today that every new PC came with a full MSDN subscription and the Intel system programmer's manuals, that's about how it was.

Of course, it took many minutes to load a program from floppy disk, so there was a lot of not-so-glorious waiting.

[smellf]

Yeah I can understand romanticizing the parts of this guy's experience with computers, but it wasn't all gravy. Did you read the part where he marveled at his new "daisy wheel" printer only having broken down once in a year of use? Or the disk drive that took 10 minutes to write out a few kB?

And how about those prices? Sure, some were $400, but you'd need $3000+ for a machine that has non-volatile storage, can run arbitrary programs, and has an input and an output device. $2000+ dollars for a hard drive storing a few MB? Not to mention the horror of completely undecided OS and instruction set architecture wars.

It's cool to imagine the simplicity of this dude tinkering with his printer made from a converted typewriter and unplugging the entire thing when the thunderheads roll in, but we're definitely better off where we are today.

[mushly]

And those are 1982 prices too.

[agumonkey]

It gets you thinking, how much of our lifestyle is about dreaming.

[porsupah]

Indeed! When my first computer, a Nascom I (4MHz Z80A, 16K RAM on an expansion card, and an integer BASIC on eight 2708 EPROMs), died, I was able to have a stab at working out what might have gone wrong by going through the schematics. It proved to be beyond hope - the PSU had fried too much - but it was positively enlightening, going through the video system, and actually understanding, seeing, how the original clock was divided down to give the character generator clock. From there, down to the horizontal sync, and from there, the vertical. With all the logic involved being on just 74xx logic, it was all so readily evident just how this all worked.

As for program loading times, that's certainly true as well. One game I wrote, for another system, required two-pass assembly. So I'd edit the source, write it out (a few minutes), rewind, first pass, rewind, second pass, launch! So, about fifteen minutes from editing to seeing the results.

Much as a touch of nostalgia may be fun, I'm happier with my MBP and iPad Air. =:) (Still, the sense of wonder inspired by current devices is probably only enhanced by the sheer contrast in capabilities of ones from that time)

[gdubs]

I've often thought this. It's something Woz mentions in his book, iWoz. There's something to be said about having a wholistic appreciation of the machine, and there was a time when a somewhat ordinary individual could hold a mental model of all the components -- software and hardware -- of their machine.

It's also a bit reminiscent of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance -- the hero rides an older bike, while his buddy rides a newer BMW model that the buddy can't maintain himself. There's less of a connection between the technology and the user; less "feel".

[dedward]

It also meant far fewer people were inclined to own them, and they were far less accessible.

These days we still do the same thing, those of us who are inclined - but we do it with the internet, funky web services, a thousand programming languages, and so on.

And if we want to tinker... we go buy an arduino or something.

[agumonkey]

I can relate a bit. Even though assembling components was a thing until early 2K, it's barely not anymore. Only gamer or very demanding people picks the pieces. Any laptop will do now, and even though I love my ThinkPad, I miss the physical interaction with wires and cards. It's not rare to feel that way, we like to sense, so miniaturization is taking something away from us. Also, even in the 90s, assembling a computer wasn't the same as in the 80s, the interfaces were complex and it was transitioning between DIY to plug'n'play so you didn't understand a lot of what was happening. Not the same as really controlling all the pieces with your own code.

[freehunter]

I like assembling my own stuff as in micro-controllers and breadboards and things where complexity can be removed by looking at a wiring schematic. I absolutely hate assembling my own stuff as in plugging in an AMD R9 270 and fitting an Intel Core i7 and finding RAM that's compatible with your motherboard and plugging in SATA cables and making sure your case fans are blowing the right way to get proper airflow and figuring out how much of a power supply you need. The only challenge that offers is in selecting compatible parts, and the only reward is having something exactly the same as the person next to you who bought his pre-built.

I'm not surprised to see PC building going away. It's a high risk, low reward enterprise, especially considering that modern games haven't push the minimum spec envelope much further than what you can play on a Macbook Air. Building a PC is like Lego, where the pieces only fit together in one specific way, and each piece costs $250. The good part doesn't start until the building is done and you get into the software.

But there will always be a place for actual hardware tinkerers, the ones who need multimeters and solder and flux. Even if it is a niche.

[agumonkey]

Hehe, you're already far above the average joe level. As a teen I'd never have been able to really follow schematics, so just Lego playing with PCI cards and such was fun. That said, pre-built configs are never really what you want, I could keep using my old p2 350 because I had opportunity to pick nice enough video, sound cards and drives to improve dataflow in the system. Most on the shelf configs were 'HIGH SPEED CPU + crippled bottleneck coprocessors'.

ps: in the wintel world, I wouldn't call software a good part, unless you enjoy removing windows and drivers crapware, but you probably had clean distributable ghost images of some kind.

[freehunter]

What I meant by that was getting to launch your game. The fun part is when you see the Quake 3 launch window.

[agumonkey]

Hehe, personally I was fond of 3DMark for showing off then Half Life 2 for the stress.

[rconti]

Don't forget IRQ conflicts and the early days of Plug 'N Pray which somehow managed to make things even WORSE.

[MetaCosm]

I just had a flashback to my PB and the combined sound card / modem -- that sometimes almost worked.

[ArkyBeagle]

You were rather limited in what you could do with them relative to now. These are the good old days.