Statement & apology (was Re: 10 Year Rule)

Evan Koblentz wrote: "classic" is one of those things that's really hard to define, plus it means different things to different people. Heck, I can't get at all enthusiastic about Apple ][ machines as to me they're not a lot different to the PCs of today. They ticked all the right boxes, had a slightly odd design, sold in huge numbers, but I find them utterly dull - possibly simply *because* they were so popular and "middle of the road". I'm not going to object to anyone else talking about them, though! We get only a handful of "modern IBM PC compatible" type posts a year it would seem, which *when it doesn't descend into an argument* typically attract a few replies. Surely it's only a fraction of total list traffic? To me that would indicate that list members are pretty much self-policing, and any attempt to define rules as to what hardware does or doesn't qualify would eventually rule out discussion of some particular hardware that *was* of interest (I'm particularly thinking things like PC cards/coprocessor boards for old non-PC systems might fall foul of any such rules) But, maybe I'm atypical anyway (aren't we all? ;) When I first joined this list way back when my interest was in a select few 8-bit micros. It seemed back then that 90% of list traffic was concerning the big iron - in other words *to me* it could be considered "off topic" as far as my interest went (these days I've broadened my horizons a heck of a lot!). I used to download list messages via a 2400 baud modem and think nothing of skim-reading posts and deleting nearly all of them as not being interesting. Hence the reason that even if I did object to OT posts (which I don't as I like the social dynamics aspect of a group of like-minded people) I'd still be tolerant of them - it wouldn't pain me to just delete anything I wasn't interested in (and these days the messages are still small but the connection speed's a little better than it used to be ;-) cheers Jules -- If you've ever wondered how you get triangles from a cow You need buttermilk and cheese, and an equilateral chainsaw