>>2806
I'm mostly interested in computers though. Basically everything from early kit computers like Nascom up through the death of Commodore (mid 90's).
My parents bought a text-only CP/M computer in the early 80's (Osborne 1) that I got to use on occasions. That was my first real exposure to computers and everything about it felt immensely satisfying to me. Nobody taught me anything, but we had all the (very extensive and high quality) manuals that came with the computer and documented everything about it that anyone from complete novice to seasoned assembly language programmer would need to know about it. Sitting down in front of the computer at age 9 with those big fat binders with thick paper that talked about CP/M commands, batch files, MBASIC, memory layout, etc. was pure magic. I don't think this experience could be replicated today, because computers have become too common and appliance-like. Back then the user was really expected to learn and everything was designed to facilitate that.
Some years later (~ 1985) I got my own very first computer, an Amstrad CPC 6128. It was similar to the one in pic, same green monochrome monitor, but a 3-inch floppy drive in the place of the tape drive. And also it had twice the memory (128KB in two banks, since the Z80 can only directly address 64KB at any given time). I never bought any games for it (well I didn't have the money anyway) but I had a few dozen blank floppy disks that soon became filled with games copied from other kids at school. One disk could fit about a half dozen typical commercial games like Arkanoid, Gryzor, Ikari Warriors, Beach Head, Ghosts 'n Goblins, Knight Lore, Paperboy, Gauntlet, etc. Some were bigger than others, but generally that was about what I could fit on those disks. Now I didn't have "hundreds of games", but I had a heck of a lot, enough that I never got bored or managed to finish most of them. But I kept trying, because getting to the next level that I never saw before was a kickass experience that I doubt can be replicated today, with all the screenshots and spoilers floating around. Again another magical experience that's been lost. And it was also a voyage of discovery, because for the most part these games didn't have much documentation. I mean, if you actually bought them you'd get manuals or at least a blurb on the cassette or diskette case inlay, but these pirate copies were just cracked and nothing more. So it was also kinda fun to figure out wtf the game is about, because for many of them I'd never even heard of them before (other than the obvious arcade ports).