There were fewer outlets for information but they were of high quality. So, the "signal to noise ratio" was significantly better.
As others have mentioned the systems were simpler and therefore more understandable. This meant that people's creativity really came out. Look up copy protection or how people cranked up the speed of the disk system on the C64 or Atari or Apple.
Tools cost money - free compilers or assemblers were few and far between. The syntax and usage was simpler and compile times were quite low.
There was no memory protection, so, the application you were development could easily take down your development system.
There were fewer outlets for information but they were of high quality. So, the "signal to noise ratio" was significantly better.
As others have mentioned the systems were simpler and therefore more understandable. This meant that people's creativity really came out. Look up copy protection or how people cranked up the speed of the disk system on the C64 or Atari or Apple.
Tools cost money - free compilers or assemblers were few and far between. The syntax and usage was simpler and compile times were quite low.
There was no memory protection, so, the application you were development could easily take down your development system.