15 Jun
2004
15 Jun
'04
1:49 p.m.
At 08:03 AM 6/15/04 -0400, Teo Zenios wrote:
Well Said! Too many members of this list simply collect old computers
and don't bother with the related docs, manuals or application programs. I
have an old original 64k IBM PC and it's been very intersting collecting
original software and peripherals for it. Things like DOS 1.0, CPM-86, uSCD
Pascal, Professional Fortran, PolyForth, IBM GPIB software, early versions
of MS Word and MultiPlan, EasyWriter (written by none other than Capt'n
Crunch!), etc etc. And that's just the software, it doesn't include all the
various Tech Refs and all the fasinating 3rd party cards and peripherals.
I don't like the current over-bloated version-of-the-day MicroSoft products
either but it doesn't mean that the early PCs are uninteresting and not
worth collecting.
Joe
The neat thing about the old machines is that it takes for ever to set
them up and this is what's so intriguing about them. I remember a
posting (not in this forum), about a guy who got an old IBM 360
mainframe working. He said that once it was working there wasn't much
to do with it.
There are allot of things you can do with vintage computers of the last 20
years besides just getting them to run. A computer is more then just the
basic hardware and the OS. I like running older software on vintage machines
because there is less bloat, earlier versions don't have the added
complexity of functions new users wont need, and all the software came with
large printed manuals instead of an empty box. It is also cheaper to mess
around with an old version of Mathematica, AutoCAD, PageMaker, MathCAD then
it is to buy a newer version. Some people like me prefer the old 2D single
player type games from the 80's and 90's that you don't find today on any of
the newer machines (and no emulators are not good enough). I like using the
many ISA data acquisition cards I own that wont fit into new machines. There
is all kinds of interesting hardware and software that you cant find for
machines other then vintage PCs, Amigas, Macs, Ataris. If just getting an
old rig to run is all there is for you, you are missing quite a bit of the
hobby.