19 Dec
2018
19 Dec
'18
3:51 a.m.
On Wed, Dec 19, 2018 at 11:31:47AM +0100, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
[...]
For millennial-age geeks, pre-32-bit computers are
antiques. They _might_
just barely remember back to Win9x. So for them, a DOS machine is a voyage of
discovery into some of the more arcane pages of history. The idea of
computers or OSes that can't boot from CD blows minds. For them, only elderly
historical kit has 3?" floppy drives.
Realistically, computers made before around 2010 *are* antiques: something
where the main value is due to its age rather than its utility.
The lack of intimate knowledge of machines from before one was born is not
surprising. You only learn it to that depth if it was current kit in your
youth. So us GenXers know rather more about 1980s Sinclair and Acorn machines
than is healthy, and earlier kit is a orange-and-wood-grain mystery.
So yes, there is a little bit of demand, I reckon. Not
highly commercial,
though.
It's a nostalgia market, and the stuff that's peaking is when those who are
starting to hit their mid-life crisis are getting nostalgic for the stuff of
their youth. That's now the 1995-2005 era, and 16 and 32 bit consoles are
flying off the shelves. There's a shop opposite Amsterdam Centraal station
which is packed to the rafters with second-hand games for 16 bit consoles, and
quite a few mail-order dealers dotted around villages here in the Noord-Holland
peninsula.
Are you feeling old yet?