There is one more important thing here: the 8 bit computer immediately invited you to start coding. The barrier to entry was incredibly low to the point of nonexistent. Compare this to a laptop today or even worse a tablet. I very strongly believe that perpetuating a "code me!" mindset vs the "consume me!" mindset has really big consequences. The ability to make your computer do something that you can do something wi…
Even the IBM PC and XT had BASIC in ROM, which worked much the same way; and it also came with a complete set of schematics and the source code of the BIOS (I don't think the source for ROM BASIC was included, since it was licensed from Microsoft.) While it wasn't truly "open source" in the legal sense and was still copyrighted, it gave users a chance to learn how their machines worked all the way down to the hardwar…
Unfortunately, a lot of people have been starting the War On General Purpose Computing[1] for a while now.
While many people saw Doctorow's first talk[1] on the War On General Purpose computing, his sequel talk[2] about the upcoming Civil-War On General Purpose Computing is one of the most important talks I've ever seen.
The talk is about exactly this point: Turing completeness scares various traditional powers (and some new/upcoming powers), and their instinct is to lash out and try to mandate that someone make a computer that can't run the various programs that scare them. Not understanding what "Turing Complete" means, they end up in a cycle that tries to blacklist anything that allows these scary programs to be written and used. Hiding the dev tools is just one step on a path that - by definition - must end up with the hobbling of computing devices until they are no longer Turing complete.
This problem needs to be fought right now, in a big way. The non-technical population is just starting to understand the full impact of what it means to have a General Purpose Computer, and we are only seeing the first skirmishes. The 2nd talk I mentioned above by Doctorow[2] - which I very strongly recommend that everybody watch - points out how modern concerns over "dev tools" (or "copyright") are trivial. We need to start the fight now, because it will be a lot more important when the War moves into areas such as medical devices or self-driving cars. We are already seeing the War start to affect areas like property rights and "first sale"; just wait until someone gets sued for publishing a fixed firmware for some company's buggy medical device.
Teaching the next generation from an early age about computers is an important part of the fight to preserve General Purpose Computers, and by promoting "learning by exploring" so kids of the future can learn like we did on older devices would help a lot, at least in the long-run.