29 Sep
2005
29 Sep
'05
7:29 a.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.
Consistency is for machinery.
On Wed, 28 Sep 2005, Fred Cisin wrote:
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 18:26:45 -0700 (PDT)
From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com>
Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at
classiccmp.org>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
Subject: YATYRD (was: PalmOS no more? :(
Yet Another Ten Year Rule Discussion)
On Wed, 28 Sep 2005, Scott Stevens wrote:
Step careful, now. By that criterion, it's
time for long technical
threads about getting obscure graphics adapters to work under Windows
3.1.
It's WAY worse than that. Under the simplistic 10 year rule, Windoze 95
is now "ON-TOPIC"!
Under the "coolness" principle, it might NEVER be on-topic.
OB_OT: Yesterday, I saw a Packard Bell running 95. I didn't know that
they would last this long.