22 Jan
1999
22 Jan
'99
4:15 a.m.
On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Max Eskin wrote:
screen of a PC, you could at most tell the company
that made it, if you
didn't miss the POST readout. If you missed it, you would know that it's
running M$ software and that's it. This is why I doubt that anyone would
be nostalgic over a specific clone; because they are all very similar
and the differences are almost always more trouble than they're worth.
DOn't forget that a lot of name-brand machines, like Compaq, Dell,
NEC, Sony, Gateway, Acer, HP, IBM, etc. started to come out with very
distinctive designs for their cases, some with crazy colors (the Sony),
and with neat features like built-in ZIP drives, built-in TV tuners, etc.
So these are the features that will distinctions mid-90s and on PCs from
each other as we move on to the 10 year mark for those machines. There
will be some interest in those at some point, if anything as an example of
the "modern" PC computer boom. And as Hans pointed out, there's all sorts
of special hardware like video boards, SCSI boards, video-capture, sound,
etc. that people added to these computers that were cool for their time,
or firsts. So those definitely will be collectable.
For every S-100 board I have right now that I think are all cool, I'm sure
at some point they became rather mundane, like a PC board is to me today,
to the point that the original owners were willing to sell them to me for
next to nothing, or give them to me in a lot of cases. I don't think
twice about giving away an ISA card today, but 10 or 20 years from now
when they're selling for $100 a pop on ebay I'll be one sorry asshole.
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
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