My premise is lack of curiosity, or do you think a small town in a country just out of 40 years of dictorship, and colonial wars, was flowing with computing information all over the place?
Just having access to electronics was revolutionary.
How would we even know what to look for, if it wasn't for our curiosity?
Are you arguing that your experience was helped by that?
My premise is that Microsoft dominance took a few years off my programming journey- obviously I was curious and motivated because otherwise it would have been impossible to he where I am now without motivation and curiosity.
I’m not entirely sure what your argument against this is other than that you potentially had it worse, which is not my point. Obviously motivation and curiosity are enough eventually, since we’re here.
If Linux was the monoculture then it would have happened sooner for me, much sooner.
My experience was helped by being curious, having the luck to track down people, that provided software and knowledge to learn in an offline world.
UNIX was already around doing those days, and it surely wasn't that easier either, unless one was already at the university with enough budget for their computing infrastructure, or something like a bank, although in many countries most likely the most advanced stuff would be MS-DOS terminals connected via Novel Netware, running Clipper applications.
Just having access to electronics was revolutionary.
How would we even know what to look for, if it wasn't for our curiosity?