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It's funny how many of these ads are aimed at "normal people", while "normal people" today would be considered completely incapable of operating machines as (relatively) user-unfriendly as some of these.

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Or maybe normal people today simply have expectations in keeping with modern technology? I'm sure modern Excel jockeys are fully capable of slogging through one of those assembly language manuals for dozens of hours. I think they could also calculate radicals to five significant figures using pen-and-paper algorithms, 19th-century style. Or till their own fields using oxen, 18th-century style. That these are all "unthinkable" today doesn't mean humans have suddenly become stupider and weaker (the opposite is true); it means they're immensely labor-consuming tasks which no longer serve a purpose, and to perform them would be an astonishing waste of effort.

However, the expectation of easiness with computers does make one less-welling to work through and figure out things when it is necessary, I've found.

We're not talking about skills that have fallen out of use over generations and therefore stopped being passed down. The people that used these machines are generally still alive and the younger ones are still part of the workforce.

Also, any parts about people being "weaker" or "stupider" are your words, not mine.

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