29 Sep
2005
29 Sep
'05
4:15 p.m.
On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Tom Jennings wrote:
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.
Yeah, but at some point computers from the post-1994 period will be
interesting, or in the very least, certain ones. Most everything from
Apple post iMac (including the iMac itself) is interesting already.
Even boring as shit 286 clones from the mid-1980s are starting to look
interesting to me, just because they aren't around anymore, and some
designs were actually quite innovative, stuffing a lot of different things
onto the motherboard long before I thought this all-in-one integration was
taking place, including SCSI controllers even.
At some point post-1990 computers became near-pure
commodity. It's
like collecting toasters.
Yes, people collect those too:
http://www.joeyharrison.com/2004/10/toaster-collector-association-held-its.…
They even have an association by gawd. Why, I'd gather they're even more
organized than those nerds we hear about who collect old computers.
Consistency is for machinery.
And for well prepared oatmeal, which this bowl I am currently eating is
not.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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