Perhaps I'm just glorifying an age I don't remember, but I'm somewhat jealous of a time when computers weren't black boxes - everybody who owned one had to buy separate components, do bits of physical maintenance, and write code.
Just like in school we start you out with arithmetic and progress from there it might make sense to see the computing world through some kind of compressed time curriculum to increase understanding and possibly avoid the re-learning of some rather painful lessons from the past.
I wonder if the success of the Raspberry Pi is an indication a lot of people do still like hobbyist computer building, though?
It would also be difficult to do now as the machines are more complex. But if you imagine today that every new PC came with a full MSDN subscription and the Intel system programmer's manuals, that's about how it was.
Of course, it took many minutes to load a program from floppy disk, so there was a lot of not-so-glorious waiting.
And how about those prices? Sure, some were $400, but you'd need $3000+ for a machine that has non-volatile storage, can run arbitrary programs, and has an input and an output device. $2000+ dollars for a hard drive storing a few MB? Not to mention the horror of completely undecided OS and instruction set architecture wars.
It's cool to imagine the simplicity of this dude tinkering with his printer made from a converted typewriter and unplugging the entire thing when the thunderheads roll in, but we're definitely better off where we are today.
As for program loading times, that's certainly true as well. One game I wrote, for another system, required two-pass assembly. So I'd edit the source, write it out (a few minutes), rewind, first pass, rewind, second pass, launch! So, about fifteen minutes from editing to seeing the results.
Much as a touch of nostalgia may be fun, I'm happier with my MBP and iPad Air. =:) (Still, the sense of wonder inspired by current devices is probably only enhanced by the sheer contrast in capabilities of ones from that time)
It's also a bit reminiscent of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance -- the hero rides an older bike, while his buddy rides a newer BMW model that the buddy can't maintain himself. There's less of a connection between the technology and the user; less "feel".
These days we still do the same thing, those of us who are inclined - but we do it with the internet, funky web services, a thousand programming languages, and so on.
And if we want to tinker... we go buy an arduino or something.
I'm not surprised to see PC building going away. It's a high risk, low reward enterprise, especially considering that modern games haven't push the minimum spec envelope much further than what you can play on a Macbook Air. Building a PC is like Lego, where the pieces only fit together in one specific way, and each piece costs $250. The good part doesn't start until the building is done and you get into the software.
But there will always be a place for actual hardware tinkerers, the ones who need multimeters and solder and flux. Even if it is a niche.
ps: in the wintel world, I wouldn't call software a good part, unless you enjoy removing windows and drivers crapware, but you probably had clean distributable ghost images of some kind.