I don't disagree over all, but I'm not sure it works that way anymore. Systems have become super complex and the measurement for what is impressive have gone up. I think the power of a lot of those early system was that they were "boxes", but still impressive enough to keep playing in that box. I think Linux is very much the opposite. You can do pretty much anything you want, but it can be very hard to get good results. If I wanted someone o have the same experience these days I'd probably put them in front of something like processing.
