Whether or not they're "less useful" is
a matter of perspective...
And just because something is less useful doesn't mean it's useless.
And there's a difference between computers and other things, like musical
instruments (or even cars). A musical instrument from 40 years ago can
still play music that's put out today. A 40 year old car can drive on a
road that was just laid yesterday. A computer from 40 years ago won't
run nearly any software that's being written today.
There's also the issue of it being recognized, and people identifying
with it - I often see antique telephones, spinning wheels, butter churns,
floor radios and whatnot - people know what these things are, and deem
them "valuable antiques". The computer had a much narrower audience, and
unless you "were there", an S-100 crate or an early PET simply doesn't
mean anything to you, let alone earlier DEC stuff ...
Dave
--
dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools:
www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html