"I wonder if kids get that same feeling of novelty we got back then?"
My question exactly. My son recently saved up his lawnmowing money and bought himself a couple-year old HTC phone. We put cyanogenmod on it and he's figuring out which games will run on it and how to extend the battery life and I think, maybe, he's having a similar sort of experience. I don't know though, it doesn't seem the same as sharing floppy disks, playing Trade Wars on the local BBS, and installing your first Soundblaster.
I'd tend to agree with you, I don't think its the same. I'm in university for SEng right now and my father has been in IT since before I was born (in 93). I've been surrounded by technology my whole life, but instead of Amigas and Apple IIs it was Windows 95 on some nameless, beige machine.
I have fond memories of learning how to interact with the family PC but nothing close to what I read about the original days when home computing and hacker culture was growing. It makes me envious to a degree, like I love programming and all that comes with it but when I read pieces like this that evoke so much fond emotion attached to the skill...I don't know...its a little foreign. To me programming and computing in general is this thing that I am good at, that brings me happiness because I like to solve problems but to people like the author it seems like something more. A dear loved one that will always warm their heart.
I'm not sure it will ever be the same as it was back then, to be a pioneer...
My question exactly. My son recently saved up his lawnmowing money and bought himself a couple-year old HTC phone. We put cyanogenmod on it and he's figuring out which games will run on it and how to extend the battery life and I think, maybe, he's having a similar sort of experience. I don't know though, it doesn't seem the same as sharing floppy disks, playing Trade Wars on the local BBS, and installing your first Soundblaster.