Besides the novelty of the actual 8-bit machines, that era pushed the 'kid hacker hero' character (hard!) Whiz-kids Richie, Wargames David, Ferris Bueller, kids

Besides the novelty of the actual 8-bit machines, that era pushed the 'kid hacker hero' character (hard!) Whiz-kids Richie, Wargames David, Ferris Bueller, kids programming supermodels, spaceships etc. What came first the enthusiasts or the role models? A generation of kids might have easily been bedazzled into chef'ing or carpentry instead. Mightn't have been a bad thing.