> it had the full attention of the computer and the user.

This why I like to use the full screen mode of my editors and IDEs.

It surprises a lot of people who see my screen. Full screen features are everywhere but rarely used.

Agreed. I do a lot my writing in Typora which, in addition to a full-screen mode, also has other "Focus" style features which get rid of distracting UI/UX elements, etc. so you can concentrate on the task at hand.