29 Sep
2005
29 Sep
'05
7:38 p.m.
Eh. Dump the 10 year rule and cut off at 1994.
I'm serious. The computer world is not a flat, linear space from
1948 to present. Somewhere after the beginning of the
pc/appliance age, computers are qualitatively different.
The culture and tech is different too. You could more easily lump
the mini and mainframe people together than the mini and pc
people. When the computer-user count became in the millions it's
simply not the same.
At some point post-1990 computers became near-pure commodity. It's
like collecting toasters. There are intersting models, but not in
the way that say 1960s or even 1970s are -- pretty much ANY
computer from the 70s and even 80s is "interesting". Pretty much
anything post-MSDOS is deadly dull -- with exceptions of course.
I think you've 'hit the nail on the head'.
Before the 'everything's a Wintel Box' time, there were all sorts of
ideas being tried. Some were good. Some were frankly awful. But most were
certainly interesting. I will be the first to admit that many of the
classic computers that I don't persoanally care for are at least interesting.
But there really is nothing special about 99% of Wintel boxes. And since
repair/upgrad consists of swapping parts for parts that are not generally
identical, what does define what machine you've got? It may say
%clone-maker on the fronat panel, but the hard disk, motherboard, PSU,
etc may now be ones that said maker never put in at the factory. So what
do you actually have.
I certainly have no interest in collecting cases with particular names on
them :-)
To give a stupid example, an IBM-badged Wintel box is pretty similar to an
HP-bardged Wintel box. But 30 years ago, the IBM 'personal' machine
(5100) was very different to its HP competitor (9830).
-tony