The definition of On Topic

It was written... ... snip ... There's way too many problems with defining something as classic based on it's age. Some things (songs, cars, etc.) become virtually classic the day they are invented. I would put forth the following dictionary definition of the word: 'Classic: forming a tradition or linked to one, often in opposition to more recent schools or theories'. Since (like it or not), modern operating systems and processors/hardware are "recent schools or theories", they are by definition not classic. The older software and hardware are generally "in opposition to" these more recent schools of thought. There's many examples - one would be how we used to spend hours looking to save an instruction cycle or two bytes of code as contrasted to the "memory and processor cycles are cheap" paradigm that is current thought generally. In addition, the very uniqueness of each of the old machines as opposed to the current "everything is windows-based" and all pretty similar. So there's the distinction of many varied systems, some better in some areas while the rest are innovative or better in the remaining areas. These are in direct opposition to the "sameness" of current platforms. A third example is how many of us at least try to understand the complete system, down to the chips on the board. The recent school of thought is you just have to know how to use word & excel. There's quite a few more examples which I'm sure you all are cognizant of. And because of the fact that we are all here talking about these systems, well, that speaks for the tradition we're linked to. Windows can't be considered "classic" because it IS the recent school of thought/theory. When it hasn't been the prevailing school of thought for a while, AND it is in opposition of the then current school of thought - it may well become classic and perfect for discussing here. This is not likely to happen in our lifetimes. A major strike against that ever happening is that it was (is) SO pervasive so I'm not sure it ever be "classic". But in the final analysis, this argument is one that will be decided by our children & grandchildren, not us. This is exactly why I'm not opposed to DOS being discussed on the list. It comes from the days of the traditions I speak of above, before 90% of the cpu and memory was dedicated to a pretty gui. Regards, Jay West