Apple ][e memories and the rise of non-tinkerability

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This post (HT: Favalora on FB) matches much of my early experience with the Apple ][e:
As it happens, this computer came with the BASIC programming language pre-installed. You didn’t even need to boot a disk operating system. You could turn on the computer and press Ctrl-Reset and you’d get a prompt. And at this prompt, you could type in an entire program, and then type RUN, and it would motherfucking run.
I can understand why Apple wants to make their products into something of a "walled garden" where the user is shielded from all that technical stuff. But it is sad that to program these days you generally have to jump through more hoops than you did thirty years ago.

On the other hand, Apple has been great about helping new developers like me market their software. It might be harder to get started programming, but it's much easier now to go from programming to selling Apps.

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