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1. DJ Sundog - from the toot-lab (djsundog@toot-lab.reclaim.technology)'s status on Sunday, 17-Dec-2017 23:17:54 EST DJ Sundog - from the toot-lab

   It is hard to explain how different home computing was compared to business computing to anyone younger than the 80386 or so.

   The Sinclairs and the Tandys and the Commodores and Ataris and Colecovisions and Texas Instruments were about enjoying yourself, maybe learning something, maybe playing a game. They mostly looked silly when they tried to do business-esque things because they weren't optimize for that.

   They were designed to be part of your home.

   1. DJ Sundog - from the toot-lab (djsundog@toot-lab.reclaim.technology)'s status on Sunday, 17-Dec-2017 23:19:54 EST DJ Sundog - from the toot-lab

      in reply to

      Now your computer manufacturers tout the quality of their "industrial design" specs to sell you a computer for your house.

      Wha?

   2. wiloma (wiloma@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 17-Dec-2017 23:22:33 EST wiloma

      in reply to

      @djsundog Even more, they were designed so that you and your friends felt responsible. Virtually everything on those computers was something that you yourself put there. And if you didn't like it, you picked up a copy of Byte magazine or Puget Sound Computer User and figured out how to change it.

      And you were actively encouraged to do so.

   3. h (h@social.coop)'s status on Monday, 18-Dec-2017 00:01:58 EST h

      in reply to

      @djsundog They were just as distant from business as they were from mainstream media as well. Convergence of computing and TV was something in the distant future. We only got a glimpse of what digital media could turn into much later when CD ROMs became more common in the 90s.