It also meant far fewer people were inclined to own them, and they were far less accessible. These days we still do the same thing, those of us who are incline

It also meant far fewer people were inclined to own them, and they were far less accessible. These days we still do the same thing, those of us who are inclined - but we do it with the internet, funky web services, a thousand programming languages, and so on. And if we want to tinker... we go buy an arduino or something.