30 Jan
2005
30 Jan
'05
7:21 a.m.
You wrote...
Not sure if I understand the final part of your
statement...
Darn, I thought I was crystal clear :)
would you agree,
or not, that within a few years (or possibly right now) we'd also have to
include the earliest versions of Windows (and other early GUI shells) that
were
still just DOS underneath?
We don't really decide what becomes classic
computing. Society as a whole
does. They have already spoken with regards to the machines we typically
discuss here, by virtue of them moving to a different (and current) school
of thought in those systems. They have yet to speak on various versions of
windows because they are still in common use.
My own view: (just examples to illustrate the point, not meant to be a
definitive list)
C64 w/GEOS - definitely on-topic
DOS - definitely on-topic
DOS with some other early GUI shell that is not the mainstream today -
definitely on-topic
DOS with Windows on top of it (Win 3.1) - grey area, I suspect not though as
it's certainly representitive of the current school of thought
Windows - not for a long, long, long, long time. Think decades.
I think that by posing the question you do, in the exact way that you did,
shows a desire for us to make some kind of determination. That's not our
place. We can't decide history in advance of it occuring :)
Jay