I found the two Rumelhart & McClelland books, just a single copy on the shelf at Cody's Books, soon after publication. I worked through the examples, and was immediately convinced that this low-level approach was a way forward.

For some reason, none of the stressed out Comp Sci professors wanted to listen to a weirdo undergraduate, a lousy student.

I'm glad I was there at a reboot of AI, but my timing was lousy.