I enjoyed the article, the author has some good points. I started on the Commodore 128 and I'd have to disagree with the author's conclusion. I think the filter is far less for self-motivated, truly interested users today than it was in the Commodore's heyday.
None of the issues presented are really issues, it's just that there's a larger swath of people who have accepted computers as mainstream devices and can now afford one. Or are simply too young and missed the heyday of the truly "personal" computer.
If I were to write a response, it would be titled The Great Filter. I was a computer nerd most of my life, by the advent of the smartphone and the majority of people realized how much the career paid, that whole stigma blew out the window. Unfortunately, the Great Filter is gone, people who would've been filtered out in the 80s are only visible by observing the students who aren't even computer literate enough to have bothered to investigating figuring out how a filesystem works before trying to program.
None of the issues presented are really issues, it's just that there's a larger swath of people who have accepted computers as mainstream devices and can now afford one. Or are simply too young and missed the heyday of the truly "personal" computer.
If I were to write a response, it would be titled The Great Filter. I was a computer nerd most of my life, by the advent of the smartphone and the majority of people realized how much the career paid, that whole stigma blew out the window. Unfortunately, the Great Filter is gone, people who would've been filtered out in the 80s are only visible by observing the students who aren't even computer literate enough to have bothered to investigating figuring out how a filesystem works before trying to program.