Where Did Personal Computing Go Wrong (2020)
So, from my perspective, I&#x27;ve been through this evolution of home computing from the early hobbyist days until now.<p>In the hobbyist days before I got involved, you might build your own computer. The Altair 8800 and Heathkit type systems were meant to be assembled by the end-user. Of course, the tinkering did not end there, as they were programmable, and you typically didn&#x27;t purchase a library of apps to load onto it, you wrote your own.<p>Now my family purchased a VIC-20 and soon after, a Commodore 64. Since I was a child, there was a heavy dose of gaming done on these machines, and I had joystick controllers and a library of commercial games that I could load. But, it was also very much an intro to systems architecture for me, where I learned how the memory is laid out, the function of various chips on the board, and how to program various subsystems from BASIC to do what I wanted. So at that point, the computer was really a good tool, and educational, with all sorts of ways that it could do my bidding.<p>In this era, BASIC and other end-user languages such as LOGO taught us how to program from the metal on up. And this was the joy of personal computing to us, the hobbyist.<p>Soon I graduated from high school and was presented with a real business-oriented 286 system, while my father got a similar one. We would run DOS and Windows 3.1. There was a lot less of programming it ourselves and a lot more of loading commercial software on those. So I think that was the turning point of home computing, from hobbyist workbench into a business appliance that was a real means to an end.<p>My later computers, a 386 and a 486, were partly gaming machines and partly Internet terminals, and of course my phase of programming it myself had fallen by the wayside, in favor of loading ever more complex applications and operating systems, and that was where my tinkering focused for the next phase: the administration of the OS. So in my career I became a systems admin who enjoyed configuring stuff, taking security measures, and tweaking the OS for performance. I also enjoyed building my own computers, as they call it, &quot;LEGO for Adults&quot;.<p>A year and a half ago, I shut down my Linux system. It was the last desktop system that I owned. I had assembled it myself from discrete parts. I had tweaked the Ubuntu OS endlessly. I no longer needed this power-user stuff.<p>Today I get by on notebook computers only. I run Windows and ChromeOS. I&#x27;m truly an end-user, if on the power-user side, but I never program the system myself anymore, and I don&#x27;t tweak the OS like a systems admin, I just dutifully install the updates. Because my computers are &quot;in production&quot;. They serve me to work for my employer and to manage my household. They are an integral part of it, rather than a hobbyist&#x27;s workbench. I don&#x27;t know if that has somehow &quot;gone wrong&quot; along the way, but it has definitely changed character since 10-year-old me picked up that VIC-20.