18 Nov
1997
18 Nov
'97
3:50 p.m.
The thing about the PC business is its sameness:
Innovations and
uniqueness (once hallmarks of the computer industry) are heresy -- to
be different is certain death (hence the BE Box, RIP).
Well, yes, the last point there is very true. One should, however, look at
something more that just what is available at CompUSA. The worlds of the
Unix (or whatever) workstation and the PeeCee are really not very far
apart, yet the workstation market thrives on innovation.
The aim of this group, I think, should be a
celebration of the things
that made our _favorite_ computing machines unique-- whether it's
Babbages difference engine, an S-100 box, an ageing PDP, or a
casualty as recent as a Be Box.
Maybe this should be the dead architecture list. That would still block
out the PeeCee and Mac.
I do have one thought about the PeeCee and how collectable it may or may
not be in the future. I am not counting historic significance, as it
probably is one the top of the list. The desktop systems, made by the big
names or the small names, may never be collectable or classic, but I
certainly can see laptops being very collectable. Transistor radios of the
late 1950s and early 1960s, like the PeeCee, are mostly all of the same,
full of crummy engineering and little innovation, yet there is a huge
market for the things. Why? They were small, often kitchy, and "all the
rage", just as laptops are now.
William Donzelli
william(a)ans.net