The Birth of Home Computing

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, personal computers began entering the home, sparking a wave of new learning and exploration among budding engineers and programmers. Whether those first machines were tucked away in a spare bedroom or cobbled together in the garage, they were the first steps for many new geeks into a wide new world.

This vignette captures that feeling. Perched atop a reused milk crate - just like you'd find under those first computer desks - the scene depicts the excitement of two new programmers sifting through floppy discs and writing their first few lines of code. Their coding cave is cluttered - using whatever was handy to store their new hobby's supplies. Turning the crank makes the programmer at the keyboard swivel back and forth, typing out their commands on the keyboard.

In the back, a brick-built floppy disc offers a tiny viewport to the simple mechanism that makes the whole vignette work.