To do all that one is able to do, is to be a man; to do all that one would like to do, is to be a god.
-- Napoleon Bonaparte
Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness.
-- H.P Lovecraft
I had my spectrum right up until we got a 486 dx2.
For me these microcomputers were a major part of my childhood. People forget how boring it was compared to today for kids (and adults) the access to entertainment/diversions were much more limited.
Only a few channels on the tv, no internet, bbs culture in the UK was nowhere near the level of the US. (You had prestel but that was very expensive, I didn't know anyone that used it.)
What I remember about this period is most just played the games, you could buy the games from anyplace it seemed even in rural England. Stores would sell these to you for a few pounds. It was realistic as a kid to be able to get these things. Same as the magazines. Towards the end of the 80s you could get magazines that had loads of games for that money.
Compare that to sega or nintendo. For the price of one game I could get 30+ spectrum games.
But for me the thing that kept me intrested all that time, was the typeins. I would spend hours typing in listings. The sence of achevement as a young lad seeing somthing you wrote actually do somthing. It was not like electronics where you had to pay to play. Every mistake you made cost you money and so you would fear to experement less you lost your inventory.
With programming you could make as many mistakes as you liked and it didn't matter you just lost your time. I used to type in the bytecode for some listings but that was about it. at the time most information on machine code was all about using it with basic and/or creating your own byte code input routine. It was not a good way to learn. So mostly I just stuck with basic. I often wonder what I would have done if I had had hisoft or zeus back in the day.
But I think a lot of what came later with the spectrum scene was because people could easily share information. Back then you learned from magazines like INPUT or the books. And for the most part the books were crap. But I still enjoyed getting microcomputer books. For me anyway childhood was pretty dull in the 80s lol. I think its one of the last time kids played in the fields, and not kept inside for fear of some mystery man doing them harm
Anyway - yea usergroups. Being in a rural village meant I would have had to have traveled over an hour and 30 mins just to get to the nearest population center. Plus my thinking at the time was after all that effort would I really be able to learn anything useful? I had friends already I could get all the games I wanted. I think I saw usergroups was something that sad cases used who didn't have friends to copy games. (You will have to forget my 8 year old self dropping truth bombs)
In school we got to use the BBC micro and I was as fascinated with this as the spectrum, the teachers wouldn't let me tinker with it as these things cost a lot of money and if your parents were not PTA people you didn't get extra time.
This irritated me but at the time I was not so salty as I should have been because I knew a few hours later I could be back home with my spectrum. I knew a kid that had a BBC micro and he was always bitter there was not more games for the system.
I guess if I were a little older (like a teenager in the 80s) then for sure I would have wanted a BBC micro/MSX. Don't get me wrong I love the Atari but access would have been a killer. Same thing goes with the other obscure microcomputers. Where would I have gotten the software?
If I had had rich parents or been working in the 80s then sure I would have gotten an apple II or if I could have gotten my hands on one a s100 bus system. But that was a rich mans hobby.
Anyway - I credit these microcomputers (even the crap ones like VIC 20) with a life long interest in programming. I might not have been very good but its scary how different life would have been without these machines.
I do wonder what would have been, had I not have been introduced to the microcomputers. I guess I would have just been a maths nerd.
Why I still program on the microcomputers, I find it fun. You can't know a modern system as completely as these microcomputers. Plus you always have the potential for someone to totally pull the rug out from under you with a software update to the OS. (Even with linux). I don't feel I have the control of the system like I do with the microcomputers.
Like joefish said its a complete system - we know a great deal more about what is possible. But even with 8-bit microcomputers, you look at something like the Atari and you can spend your life studying it and still not discover everything. There is a lot of hidden depth to microcomputers.
When I saw the demos people had done - I was amazed. For me that is beautiful. Even if its not practical to be able to make a machine do something that nobody thought was possible. That is amazing. To be able to know you can bend a thing to your will. Make it do what you want. That is also good.
I program my own tools on the 64 bit systems, I plan to put Forth on the bare metal - lol I guess microcomputers change the way you see yourself and the computer. modern users are happy to just be a user and dependent on others. For me I want to have that control I did with the 8 bit machines on modern systems. I don't care if I don't have a thousand apps or widgets I don't need slowing down the system.
Plus for me modern computers represent a different period in my life. I don't know but using borland c gives me a different feeling today. I remember my college life but its not the same as working with the 8-bit machines. The PCs were something used for work. I guess that is it.