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I think ots rose tinted glasses to a degree and survivorship bias - the learning curve was very steep, documentation lacking or absent + no one to ask for help. I was glad I could run some games on my C64 and never really got farther with it due to these limitations.

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The old 8bit micros from the c64 era had plenty of documentation. Those computers even shipped the schematics of their hardware, let alone a manual for BASIC.

I literally learned to program by reading those manuals

But I think the missing ingredient they had back then was there was nothing better to do. Being "bored" isn't as much of a thing anymore for anyone, not just children.

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