I just can't get me enough of Raymond Chen and his wonderful walks down the dustier paths of memory lane. Feels like a more innocent time where I didn't feel like I was imminently going to be turned into paperclips.
It’s probably partially an illusion, but while everything wasn’t fine back then, it seemed that there was at least a vision of a positive self-determined computing future that could be achieved and that we were roughly on-track on. Nowadays it feels more of a fight to keep things not getting worse, most of the time.
I agree, but I also think it goes farther than computers and technology. Back then the overall zeitgeist was just a whole lot more positive. These days people are all about one-upping on the dark grittiness of music, movies, etc. But back then things were more upbeat. Yeah, we were worried about the cold war and nuclear armageddon, etc. But we still felt hopeful that we were working toward something better. I miss that.