'Home' computer: Definition

Somehow, a discussion I started of actually USING "home computers" (versus merely collecting them) degenerated into a fight about what a "home computer" is. And a sister discussion I attempted to start about putting "modern" applications on classic machines yielded discouraging words, too. I guess I should have started out with my ulterior motives. For a computer to survive as anything more than a relic, it has to have a user community. Now, I suppose I could use my TI for "typical home computing tasks" with the software I already have whether there was anyone else in the world using a TI or not. And I suppose I would, too. But for other jobs I wanted done that my computer COULD do (even if being a Web browser is NOT one of them), I would either have to program it myself, or find someone else to do it. And if I did it myself, most of the fun is sharing it with other TI users. And part of the fun of having this old computer is that there are other people bucking the trend along with me. In other words, we have a TI computer user community, and that is a very hefty reason for sticking with the TI computer. In fact, the TI community is shrinking, and as the members of the community observe it shrinking, some are inclined to bail out ("rats abandoning a sinking ship"). Given that trend, the community will waste away to a few hardcores unless there is new life added, either in exciting new "modern applications" or attracting new people to adopt a simple machine that can perform "common everyday household computing tasks" that they DON'T need a Pentium to do. Of course, while my main loyalties are to the TI-99/4A, I recognize all the other "home computers" suffer from the same conditions, and I was hoping to create a dialog for HOW to do this, particularly strategies to attract people to join the community, and to share technology of "modern applications" that one community may have successfully achieved and another could use. So what I was fishing for was the thoughts of those people who read this List and understand the dilemma. In a Wintel-dominated world, is it even FEASIBLE to try to attract other people to choose from the abundance of small computer systems, otherwise destined for the landfill or recyclers? My previous remarks about mainframes, which were interpreted as saying that they are not "home computers", were made from the point of view (and perhaps in ignorance) that, while C64s, Atari 8-bitters, TIs, CoCos, and other "home computers" that were sold FOR THAT PURPOSE in K-Mart and other department stores DO (or at least did) have a user community, sharing programs, encouraging other users, forming User Groups, publishing Newsletters, etc., other machines (such as the PDP class of mains, minis, etc. and maybe Altairs and S-100 bus computers) do NOT have this aspect to their existence. I guess I do know about DECUS; don't know if something like that existed for PDP-11 owners or not, or even if professionally-oriented thing like DECUS would be applicable here. I certainly did not mean to imply that these machines are not useful for "household computing jobs", and by no means did I intend that this mailing list is only for the classic "home computers" with user communities, or to exclude anyone else from participating. -- ********************************************** * David Ormand *** Southwest 99ers * * dlormand(a)aztec.asu.edu *** Tucson, Arizona * **************************** TMS9900 Lives! *