When I get into a funk thinking about the above points, I cheer myself up thinking that the % of people who used the 8-bits are probably a somewhat self-selecte

When I get into a funk thinking about the above points, I cheer myself up thinking that the % of people who used the 8-bits are probably a somewhat self-selected group, and that all the today's programming-unfriendly UX did is extend the computer use to the rest. But the original cohort will program today just as they did way back when. And furthermore, today we have the Internet and its mind boggling amount of information. Did I like learning on my Atari 800 XL that came with a programming manual and booted up in 1s? Absolutely. Would I have killed to have access to all the hardware register information, instruction set manuals etc. that I couldn't get at the time without--in my country--being politically connected? You bet ;-)