I see I'm losing points by not taking seriously this survey with a handful of respondents. Well, so be it. People haven't changed. We've all been raised reading black text on a white background.
"Everyone" didn't know any such thing about amber text, it was just a less bad choice given the technology of the day. It was cheaper to manufacture a display that produced bright text on a black background - fewer pixels to light. Green text was very popular in dumb terminal days. Didn't make it readable (or unreadable). It was just a step in the inevitable transition to more book-like displays. If you enjoy reading light text on dark backgrounds, go back a few years and peruse the mostly unreadable issues of Wired Magazine.
> It was cheaper to manufacture a display that produced bright text on a black background - fewer pixels to light.
Btw, I hope that was a completely tongue in cheek remark.
Monitors don't work like photocopiers and toner. The whole inside of the CRT was coated with phosphors, and an electron beam scanned across them, changing intensity to determine the brightness of a so-called pixel. As the beam is only "drawing" one dot at a time, it doesn't really care whether your whole screen is on or off.
Which brings up yet another reason a monochrome CRT was less fatiguing than a color one showing black and white: the color CRTs required a triad of phosphors and a shadow mask screen to help the beam hit the right phosphors, cutting visual resolution to less than a third of what a monochrome would offer.
On the contrary, the research studies done in the mid 80s showed conclusively that amber text on black was superior, though those monitors cost far more. They also showed that though green was cheap, it performed better than black on white, which performed about the same as white on blue (think WordPerfect for DOS).
Yes, the "technology of the day" was one factor -- part of the problem with the light backgrounds was the flicker of CRTs, which was extremely fatiguing to those of us who can see fluorescent bulbs flicker.
However, amber also performed better for a key reason that remains true today for driving glasses or ski goggles -- amber offers the human visual system better contrast discernment, so much so that amber is used correctively for human visual system contrast loss from brain injury or diabetic vision[1]. It's used indoors, and notably, for reading.
Wired magazine is a poor example. Paper and ink work by indirect lighting, while with monitors, the information itself is lit. Your brain processes these differently. Furthermore, as a subscriber to wired, I know their dark backgrounds are shiny, dramatically reducing contrast.
As my grandparent comment remarked, technology has changed. Today's LCDs have high enough contrast they can offer a less fatiguing contrast. For reading the web, I prefer Safari's Reader button (black on white) or the Readability bookmarklet (set to black on ivory). With the high contrast screen, I can run at 30% brightness backlighting and get a brightness and contrast very similar to well lit ink and paper.
Moderate brightness black on white crisp text does give the fastest reading and most retention, as studies in the mid 00s have found. It's not been shown if this is natural, or the result of, as you noted, our upbringing with traditional books.
For terminal windows, IM, and coding, I prefer syntax colored text on black. In IM I use greens, sky blues, and ambers for others, self, and group text; code is white on black with colored syntax, terminals are amber on black for glance-able contrast even with very small print. That it is easier to pick up text colors on black than on full spectrum white is noted by the overwhelming majority of coders here.
Significantly, when you're creating terminal commands, IM messages, or code, you don't need the fast reading and high retention of ink and paper, because you are generating the information structure in your own mind. This frees you to deploy your color use for the visual contrast and syntax clarity of colors on black instead.
