Agreed. There was something universal, almost magical, about ROM BASIC. For me it was Commodore BASIC on the C64. I turn the machine on, and instantly there's

Agreed. There was something universal, almost magical, about ROM BASIC. For me it was Commodore BASIC on the C64. I turn the machine on, and instantly there's a little flashing prompt inviting me to give it some input. Having to enter commands here to LOAD from tape was what initially sparked my interest in programming. I'm telling the machine what to do, and it's doing it right away. Wow. There was no barrier to entry. And despite valiant efforts these days, it was so much better than the modern "making programming accessible" ideas. I didn't have to install anything. Every C64 I would encounter had this functionality. It didn't feel like a dumbed down second-class-citizen environment. This was how you interacted with the machine. I think that main-streaming of general purpose computers has killed this. I can't imagine booting my primary machine to a BASIC prompt now (or even a shell, I guess). It would make listening to music, watching videos, checking my bank balance or accessing my virtual machines for work. I don't have separate media devices. I can't just throw on my headphones and listen to my walkman while my computer is busy with something. Although modern computing has unlocked a lot of potential, I think we've made too many compromises. Outside of industrial and scientific applications, most computing devices try to be a jack of all trades, being everything to everyone, and doing poorly at it. Like so many contemporary software engineers (myself included - I mean, the modern tools and frameworks are too large and diverse know as intimately as we used to know computers). Sigh.