19 May
2024
19 May
'24
4:10 p.m.
How much did you know about tub files or Telex exchanges at their age? Same deal.
You know about it because you were there, and you’re confusing knowledge of a specific era
with knowledge of the era immediately prior to one’s own.
Will people who weren’t alive for the computers of the 80s feel for them the way people
who remember them do? Of course not. They’ll feel that way about a generation newer, in
the same way that as a hobbyist you didn’t build your own edge-notched card system. We’re
already seeing Gen Z enthusiasts get really into late-90s off-brand beige Wintel boxen,
which is baffling to me as someone who lived through that era and thinks it’s about as
exciting as collecting Kleenex, but that’s their version of Millennials trying to revive
the 80s technofuture.
Remember that relative age and absolute age are not interchangeable, and consider whether
you celebrate the era you do because you picked it out of all the possibilities, or
because it’s what’s nostalgic for you based on when you were forming those early memories.
:)
—m.a
(the TL;dr is that any statement that hinges on “kids these days can’t $skill” is usually
not materially of much weight and is a lack of perspective on the speaker’s part. It was
said about your generation by your parents, and the one before that, and the one before
that, back to the first sharpened stone. The specifics change, but the phenomenon hasn’t
been new for twenty thousand years.
Don't get your mind get old. It’s a choice.)
On May 19, 2024, at 10:58, Sellam Abraham via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
I am seeing this hobby growing beyond my own expectations, and a lot of
younger people are coming into it. Many people in their teens and twenties
are newly discovering the 8-bit computers with which I grew up. I had no
concept of computer history until I fell into the hobby, and was fascinated
to learn all about the computers that came before my time, including the
S-100s of the 1970s, then the mini-computers of the prior generation on
which the S-100 machines were based, and then the mainframes on which the
minicomputers were based. I was floored when I first learned that the
ENIAC was up and running in the 1940s--a digital computer in the 1940s!!
Today it seems almost obvious, because I've studied--basically
lived--computer history for so long now.
Like with any passion, you either get it or you don't. Out of the handful
of computer professionals you spoke to, maybe 1 of them will delve deeper
into the history and come away somewhat interested, perhaps inspired in
some way, but for the most part, their career does not depend on knowing
where it all started, just like a mechanic can know every last part of a
car without needing to know about Ford, the Dodge brothers, etc.
But as new people continue to find their way into this hobby, each will
find their niche, and as long as we today do a good job of preserving what
came before us to present up to the people who come after, there will at
least be that opportunity for newcomers to discover and explore the various
facets of computer history.
In short, yes, it will live on, thanks in part to us.
Sellam
> On Sun, May 19, 2024 at 8:28 AM Tarek Hoteit via cctalk <
> cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
> A friend of a friend had a birthday gathering. Everyone there was in their
> thirties, except for myself, my wife, and our friend. Anyway, I met a
> Google engineer, a Microsoft data scientist, an Amazon AWS recruiter (I
> think she was a recruiter), and a few others in tech who are friends with
> the party host. I had several conversations about computer origins, the
> early days of computing, its importance in what we have today, and so on.
> What I found disappointing and saddening at the same time is their utmost
> ignorance about computing history or even early computers. Except for their
> recall of the 3.5 floppy or early 2000’s Windows, there was absolutely
> nothing else that they were familiar with. That made me wonder if this is a
> sign that our living version of classical personal computing, in which many
> of us here in this group witnessed the invention of personal computing in
> the 70s, will stop with our generation. I assume that the most engaging
> folks in this newsgroup are in their fifties and beyond. (No offense to
> anyone. I am turning fifty myself) I sense that no other generation
> following this user group's generation will ever talk about Altairs, CP/M
> s, PDPs, S100 buses, Pascal, or anything deemed exciting in computing. Is
> there hope, or is this the end of the line for the most exciting era of
> personal computers? Thoughts?
>
> Regards,
> Tarek Hoteit
>
>
>