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Yeah, I know someone who works in a high school and the average skill level is "struggles to figure out how to save a document on a USB stick". Kids know how t

Yeah, I know someone who works in a high school and the average skill level is "struggles to figure out how to save a document on a USB stick". Kids know how to press the power button on an Xbox or tap an icon on their iPhone. The staff member I know is aware of ONE kid in the entire school who has used Linux. When I was a kid, basically every single kid who had a computer at home (and actually used it) knew how to defrag the hard drive (and probably install Windows lol), set IRQ values for their sound card, all that kind of stuff -- because you had to know this to even use it. My friends and I went on BBSes and later stuff like IRC and Hotline, ran Linux or pre-release versions of our respective OSes, set up our own bedroom LANs and personal game/web servers, etc. etc.. Indeed, as you say, I learned a lot about computers simply by wanting to circumvent the limitations that school admins put on the computers (especially as I wanted to utilize the full power the computers provided, as opposed to some sheltered/limited experience -- "At Ease" -- surprisingly reminiscent of smartphones/tablets today)... I went to great lengths to regain net access when my parents repeatedly revoked my access, again another huge learning opportunity.

nuancebydefault 2y ago
I think we technical people have wrong perceptions of the past. When I was young, family members would say 'ah you know everything about computers, I can't get this (illegal) copy of game x working, please help.' 99 percent of people did NOT know how to resolve IRQ conflicts or even know that 'my documents' is just a folder on the C drive.
- TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
  But we're talking about the current generation of "technical people" - CS students who don't know what a file system is. Or a command line. Or a compiler. There are some Minecraft superbrains doing incredible things, but the median level of experience and insight seems much lower.
- amatecha 2y ago
  I know what you mean, but I'm also specifically calling out the "percentage of homes with computers" and their respective technical literacy. My friends and I, as kids, knew "everything" about computers and how to operate them, and there was this base level of knowledge that pretty much every computer-owning kid had. I remember one friend figured out himself how to hex-edit his WarCraft 1 save files, this would have been at the age of 10 or 11, with zero instruction/guidance from parents or anything. I'd be impressed today if you found a singular kid in an entire high school who can hex-edit anything, let alone game saves, despite probably every single household of every student in that school having at least one personal computer, if not more. Simultaneously, there's an important aspect that computers and the software for them are more abstract than ever, so "hex editing" is a pretty obscure thing for someone to have any reason to do. Regardless, being able to save the currently-open Microsoft Word document to the USB stick one just inserted is pretty much the bare minimum of technical literacy I expect from anyone who has a computer at home -- yet this is apparently not the case. I'm talking like, even on a Mac, students couldn't figure it out. My conclusion here is that, as many people lament, there was a spike in time where computer enthusiasm was a real thing, where a relatively high % of kids wanted to "know everything about computers", but now computers are normal and boring and most people see them as "thing to launch game/chat/web on", for better or for worse (and for a wide variety of reasons).

nuancebydefault 2y ago

I think we technical people have wrong perceptions of the past. When I was young, family members would say 'ah you know everything about computers, I can't get this (illegal) copy of game x working, please help.' 99 percent of people did NOT know how to resolve IRQ conflicts or even know that 'my documents' is just a folder on the C drive.

TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
But we're talking about the current generation of "technical people" - CS students who don't know what a file system is. Or a command line. Or a compiler. There are some Minecraft superbrains doing incredible things, but the median level of experience and insight seems much lower.
amatecha 2y ago
I know what you mean, but I'm also specifically calling out the "percentage of homes with computers" and their respective technical literacy. My friends and I, as kids, knew "everything" about computers and how to operate them, and there was this base level of knowledge that pretty much every computer-owning kid had. I remember one friend figured out himself how to hex-edit his WarCraft 1 save files, this would have been at the age of 10 or 11, with zero instruction/guidance from parents or anything. I'd be impressed today if you found a singular kid in an entire high school who can hex-edit anything, let alone game saves, despite probably every single household of every student in that school having at least one personal computer, if not more. Simultaneously, there's an important aspect that computers and the software for them are more abstract than ever, so "hex editing" is a pretty obscure thing for someone to have any reason to do. Regardless, being able to save the currently-open Microsoft Word document to the USB stick one just inserted is pretty much the bare minimum of technical literacy I expect from anyone who has a computer at home -- yet this is apparently not the case. I'm talking like, even on a Mac, students couldn't figure it out. My conclusion here is that, as many people lament, there was a spike in time where computer enthusiasm was a real thing, where a relatively high % of kids wanted to "know everything about computers", but now computers are normal and boring and most people see them as "thing to launch game/chat/web on", for better or for worse (and for a wide variety of reasons).