17 Nov
2004
17 Nov
'04
7:49 a.m.
Doc Shipley wrote:
Computer Collector E-Mail Newsletter wrote:
I would not quite describe my IBM Workpad Z50 as a classic, but it
certainly is unusual. OK, it is basically just a big WinCE PDA (or is
it a very small MIPS laptop?), but they are interesting, and not exactly
a common commodity.
I wonder if my old Compaq P60 would be classified as a classic yet?
Again, not that old, and "beige box", but very cool and unusual in that
it had built-in SCSI, and a keyboard with a mike and speaker built in.
Lots of other little wierd things like that too...
Gordon.
The terms are too similar, people will just get
more confused.
All I intended to do when I started this discussion topic was to point
out the
obsurdity of considering things like the Web and Pentiums as "vintage"
(or any
other synonym). But then others observed back that I was being
short-sighted
-- if you ignore that actual age, "vintage" just means "anything
considered
obsolete by the mainstream," and that's a good enough answer for me.
But I do
think that 15 years, not 10, is a better divider between what's just
"old" and
what's truly vintage.
I think you're all looking at this completely backwards.
The rate of electronic evolution (OK, change) has *accelerated* over
time, meaning that computers are obsoleted much more quickly than their
older counterparts. Therefore the age limit for this list should be
*lowered* to about 8 years now.