[rbg81]

Before that happens the baseline computing knowledge of the general population will have to increase substantially.

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In a way the opposite is happening. As people use computers more, they know less and less about them. Someone who bought a PC circa 1990 had to be much more of an expert on how to configure them than someone today. Software designers have made computing devices and applications increasingly easy to use and foolproof. That insulates the masses from the underlying complexity of the systems.

[Dr. Sivana]

. Someone who bought a PC circa 1990 had to be much more of an expert on how to configure them than someone today.

Yes! I haven't had to use debug from the DOS prompt to low-level format an MFM hard drive in a LONG time. I also haven't had to tweak config.sys and autoexec.bat to use memory efficiently or correct memmaker's mistakes.

Go back a little farther, and the serial cables had to be custom made from one make to another.

And DON'T get me started on configuring MicroChannel Architecture cards for the ISM PS/2 series!