Turing Complete

It is a game about building functional computer by combining logic gates. Game arranged in series of small puzzles to make it digestible for people without electric engineering degree like me. You slowly build new components, so you can use them later as higher level abstraction until you get to the point of having to program your own computer to solve further puzzles. If you curious how computers work, this game is a gem.

I think it mostly explained by that in earlier days most people who dived into programming did it because it interested them. Then it became one of most lucrative career path, and naturally it saw surge of people, who do not share same interests. Relative amount of people invested in dive bombing into meaty details dropped, but it quite possible that absolute amount have not declined by much.