Computers used to be a family thing. Back then it was a bit of a status symbol to have a "computer room" for the family "home computer," and many a den or library or spare bedroom in middle America was converted to being The Computer Room. The ads on TV and in magazines showed families gathered around this new wonder machine, and even in my dysfunctional household that really happened. Family members who wouldn't normally speak to one another would come together at the home computer.
Today, we have "personal computers." A term which evokes a more "me and mine" vibe, rather than an "ours" ethos. We picked up the "PC" term from the business world, where it was an important distinction that each person could have a computer, rather than rely on the company's shared resources. But that term should have stayed in the office.
There's a reason that early video game machines, and even some computers, had four controllers — because people would come over to your house and you did things as a group with other human beings. That's why everyone had candy dishes in the living room and guest towels in the bathroom — in case "company" came over.
Now, the state-of-the-art is being locked alone in the dark in a "media room" with goggles and headphones in your own cocoon, shutting out the real world, and the human beings in it.
Competing for computer time is one of those childhood memories I'm least fond of.
I understand competing for computer time. I had to sneak in computer time at school because boys weren't allowed to use the computers. You were required to take typing classes before you could get into the computer classes, and only girls were allowed to take typing.
For a few years in the early 1980s I had a kit based on the 1802 with a whole 2 kB of RAM and a hexadecimal keypad. Fun times.
