One other factor not mentioned in this yet in this thread was the advent “PC” culture in the mid-80s, when the first “PC-compatible” computers came on the market, and before “PC” came to mean political correctness. It was a very specific social demographic. Building computers became the white male nerd equivalent of working on cars, and this eventually segued to “LAN parties”, multi-player games, creating web servers and “hacking”. Many from this group did go on to get CS degrees, and their influence persists to this day.