I didn't personally get the sense that the author was reminiscing about the past. I just thought of it more as what he thinks is a lack of ambition and vision i

I didn't personally get the sense that the author was reminiscing about the past. I just thought of it more as what he thinks is a lack of ambition and vision in computing today in ways that will solve larger problems rather than going with the closed environments that are available today. tldr; Maybe having an open plane with few imaginative restrictions (as early computing did) allows one to rethink certain patterns we assume as truth today. For example, if no one is working on a new OS because of Linux, Windows - could that be worse for the world in the long run?