29 Aug
2006
29 Aug
'06
1:55 p.m.
On 8/29/2006 at 1:21 PM Zane H. Healy wrote:
While a PC is a PC is a PC seems to be the common view
here (I've even
said
it in explaining why I don't collect them), the
fact is, it isn't true. I
didn't even realize how much change in the PC market there has been in the
last 10 years until I started writting this up. By comparison to a
current
system, a lowly Pentium computer is a primative beast
indeed. Why doesn't
this antique deserve to take it's rightful place as a "Classic"?
I think that trying to classify something by what's under the hood is a way
to madness.
I'm looking at two PCs of approximately the same age and processing speed,
with the same CPU. One's a Dell desktop box; the other's a Toshiba Infinia
7230. The Dell's just a desktop PC and is unremarkable and perhaps only
marginally collectible. The same might be said for the Toshiba, but for
one aspect--it was the first PC that I know of that was marketed with much
ballyhoo as a do-everything multimedia PC that was never powered off. It
has a phone hookup with answering machine software, TV, radio, FAX, and
other goodies as part of the standard bundle. It was a colossal failure
(Toshiba quit making desktops shortly thereafter), but many might consider
it to be historically significant--and therefore unique and a "classic",
even if it did run Windows 95.
I think we need to be flexible, folks.
Cheers,
Chuck