Change in computers as a hobbiest... 2842

Please explain. You probably wouldn't have a cheap, powerful personal computer on your desktop now if it hadn't been for the 80s and the lowly 8-bt home computers of the time.

I can agree with the idea that a sizable portion of casual users would be better off if they bought their computers, applications and system administration as a service. What I can't agree with is the idea that it should be that way for everyone.

Okay. How much money would you have been willing to invest in computer hardware that had allowed you to do that, at that time? How about ordinary people?

Ordinary people are not satisfied with TTY access - they want colors, animation, graphics, 3D, sound. There's only so much you can do over a phone line. What is more, phone calls are still metered over here, even the local ones.

I got my first computer at the age of 8. It didn't occur to me that I should have hired a system administrator or get some formal training to run it. I just read the manuals and some magazines. You would probably have liked to sell me computers as a centralized service - with a dedicated techno-clergy running and operating everything behind the scenes - but where's the fun in that? It would only have been much more restrictive and more expensive, just the way the commercial online services were before the Internet opened up to the mbuttes.

So what you're saying here is that you did your work on your customers' computers, on their computer time and at their expense? Doesn't sound much like anything that would have been a viable solution for the ordinary people. (In comparison, a similar kind of computer setup I was using at the time was in use in thousands of homes already, and just about any ordinary western household with a tiny amount of disposable income could have afforded to buy one.)

-- znark