I think something the generation today is missing is in the 80’s we had a belief that we were truly on the cutting edge of the Star Trek future. But PCs were not yet really for the masses (despite what Mr. Tramiel claimed), but totally for the bedroom geek. You had to work hard to generate the smallest return, and trying to find information was difficult at best. There was CompuServe and Q-Link if you could afford it, but much of what you learned you learned by hacking on your own.

Yes, yes, snow uphill and all that, but my point is all of that energy was driven by a belief that you were just beginning to tap into real power, cracking open a portal. A glimpse of the future was in there, and the future was awesome.

Uh huh. Today I cannot believe how dystopian things have become. This is totally not the future envisioned back in the day. I’m not discounting all advances, but I am thinking about the state of the average home PC today. It is not filled with hopefully bliss, but instead it has become a nightmare of “how do I avoid Big Brother's claws today, this week, next month?” This of course was always the Sci-Fi possibility, but I personally never dreamed that this would be the norm.

IMHO, today’s computer environment destroys the inner geek. Going retro brings it back. Maybe something good and modern will eventually blossom.