OSNews

You know, I get what people say about how computing, from a hobbyist perspective, has changed, but at the same time, a lot of this is just the environment we're immersed in. How many hobbyist-targeted computer magazines are there anymore? Many target consumers, but not *hobbyists*. Many target the enterprise - these are the most insufferably boring magazines of all, however informative.

And then there are users' groups, which I think still carry forward a lot of the fun and hobbyist-styled enthusiasm of the past. They're still out there.

The problem, and maybe this is just my own thing, is that a lot of people got into computers in the 90s - say, professionally - who had no real love or interest in them beyond their paycheck. If they're good at what they do, fine, but they've diluted the population of computer enthusiasts by sort of mixing in. I've run into this problem repeatedly. In fact, I know almost no computer enthusiasts at all, beyond those who are interested exclusively in their paycheck and resume.

We need a Compute! for the 2000s and some kind of gathering place for hobbyists, because if you look back, what is available to us today as enthusiasts blows what was available in the 70s and 80s out of the water. I often say that Linux renewed my interest in computers from a hobbyist perspective because of, among other things, the amount of completely free software available for it. It still amazes me how much software I have and how none of it, anymore, is pirated

There was an article recently about how BASIC used to come with computers and how that affected a whole generation of computer users. Well, all of today's modern UNIX-like systems come with what - Perl, PHP (two excellent first languages, especially the function-rich-out-of-the-box PHP - way better than BASIC), C, Python...not to mention the servers, etc.

I started on a Commodore 64 but really, today's tech is where it's at - cheaper and more plentiful than ever. It is up to every one of us who cares about this kind of thing to carry this spirit forward, to introduce new generations to the joy and fascination of computers as a hobby, and to remember that, however sick of looking at monitors some of us may be by the end of the workweek, it's worthwhile carving out "me time" on the computer for creative, recreational computing.

Build something; the bricks are free!

I look forward to visiting this museum. I saw a movie this past weekend called COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT, and it had a lot of good retro tech in it, and it rekindled my interest in older systems.