I disagree computers were much simpler. If you wanted to play games, you had to struggle with IRQ, DMA, extended memory mode, smartdrive, config.sys, autoexec.bat, commandline ARJ, zip, rar, floppies or tapes, and so on. If you had Linux, you also had to regularly recompile kernel to make something work (for example a device driver).
My pet hypothesis is that puzzle and turn-based strategy games were much more popular back then because average computer user was much nerdier. Age of Wonders III came out in recent years, and while it has very good production qualities and is a much more advanced strategy than Heroes of Might and Magic or first Civilization games, it never reached its popularity.
But back to programming. Monthly magazines were BIG before internet, and some of them taught programming. For example there would be a game or another interactive program written in BASIC in every issue. When you had the entire source code printed in front of you, it was fairly easy to tinker with it to grant extra lives, etc.
Computer interfaces were lower level, and less friendly. Computers themselves are now mindbogglingly more complex than they were back then (and a good deal of that complexity goes towards making them easier to build and use!)
I agree with your hypothesis about games. If you have to do some study and learn some magic incantations even to launch a game (insert fond memories of himem.sys and boot disks here), then it stands to reason that those of us who could actually get into games were the type of people who liked a bit of an intellectual challenge.
Magazines were a big thing, definitely. I have a big box of Acorn Users somewhere that I inherited from my dad, and at long intervals I pull them out to read through the articles and old BASIC listings. :)
+1 for the magazine mention. A lot of what I learned from tinkering with computers back then came from magazine and the floppies (and later CDs) of shareware they tended to include.
My pet hypothesis is that puzzle and turn-based strategy games were much more popular back then because average computer user was much nerdier. Age of Wonders III came out in recent years, and while it has very good production qualities and is a much more advanced strategy than Heroes of Might and Magic or first Civilization games, it never reached its popularity.
But back to programming. Monthly magazines were BIG before internet, and some of them taught programming. For example there would be a game or another interactive program written in BASIC in every issue. When you had the entire source code printed in front of you, it was fairly easy to tinker with it to grant extra lives, etc.