17 Jan
2010
17 Jan
'10
8:01 p.m.
On Jan 17, 2010, at 1:49 PM, Tony Duell wrote:
Is any classic computer 'useful' _as a computer_ now? Even I
realise that
a modern PC will beat the heck out of just about any classic
manchine...
Because Thing B is faster, Thing A is no longer useful?
That's not exactly what I said of meant :-). I also know that classic
computers are perfectly capable of being useful for all sorts of things.
Heck, this machine has a 16MHz master clock (that is not a typo...). And
many of my machines are a lot slower than that.
OK, I didn't express myself clearly. My point is that even if an 8/L is
not as useful a computer as even pther PDP8s (only 8K words of store?,
odd I/O bus?, and so on), it doesn't make it useless. It could certainly
provide me with hours of entertainment. Alas it won't, since there's no
way I could afford one, but anyway.... I asusme there are others who feel
likewise (and unfortuaately, at least IMHO, people who probably can
afford to buy it, but have no intention of trying to understnad it,
trying to use it, and so on).
-tony
Part of what makes them desirable is
that they are now over 40 years old and when found, usually
complete
enough to run and quite portable.
Portable, yes. But also quite useless. You can
add peripherals to the