>Nothing has become easier; Try running an OS off a USB back when Windows 2000 was around. It was very very difficult. These days I just run my OS off Samsung

>Nothing has become easier; Try running an OS off a USB back when Windows 2000 was around. It was very very difficult. These days I just run my OS off Samsung SSDs plugged in externally 24/7 on nearly all non cloud hosted machines. If I go to a friends house or bring my laptop around I just boot off that external flash devices. Seperating your data from the machine is very flexible. This is simple now because the hard work has been done. Also way easier to learn programming these days with StackOverflow and virtually infinite resources of the modern internet. Even 80s or 90s internet had some advantages over today but holistically it's just really been getting better and bigger. Learning programming back then require decent manuals and access to other people with expertise.