An OutoftheMain Activity 3786

On Wed, 14 Jun 2006 10:42:17 -0500, Charles Richmond

The right time *was* early, if you had the money to afford a computer that was powerful enough to be interesting back then.

Of course you can still be a computer hobbyist today, though. It's true that one doesn't see magazines published with a "computer hobbyist" orientation any longer, but you can still program the computer yourself - particularly if you put Linux on your computer.

Many computers that come with Microsoft Windows *included* provide their OEM copies of the software in a form that doesn't lend itself well to partioning the HD; this can be dealt with by getting a second HD. (However, in a machine formatted in NTFS, I think there is probably still an issue with a Linux distribution being able to alter the first disk so as to allow dual booting.)

Instead of people selling articles to magazines, there is, of course, a vibrant community of people on the Web.

It is true, though, with GUI environments, and the increased power of today's computers, what would have impressed people back in the old days - writing a little game in BASIC, for example - is no longer of interest, and so it is much harder to write a genuinely useful program of real interest to others.

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