New subject: NonPC x86s (was: Statement & apology

29 Aug 2006

...

Subject: Re: Statement & apology (was Re: 10 Year Rule)
   From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
   Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 01:42:08 +0100 (BST)
     To: cctalk at classiccmp.org

  I'm trying really hard to reach out and
maintain composure....  
 It is appreciated, and I hope you can see the point that myself and several
 others are trying to get across.  Please bare with my rambling in this
 email.  I'm trying to illustrate a point :^)

 I would like to emphasis that I am not trying to pick a fight here.  If
 anyone feels that way, or feels like firing back a flame, please go do 
Hopefully this is not a flame, I don't intend it to be 

  something else for an hour or two.  If you still
feel the need to reply, try
 to let logic rather than emotion dictate what you write.

 Let me start by saying that what I right below is based on my perception
 that the crux of this issue is that if the "10 year rule" is in effect, then
 Pentiums and Windows 95 are on-topic. 
A serious question : Was the Pentium ever used in a non-PC compatible? I 
know the 386 was -- there was a least one Sun that used it, and those 
interesting Sequent multi-processor 386 machines. Anything similar with 
the Pentium? If so, (and if they're more than 10 years old or whatever), 
I think I could easily consider those to be classic computers. 
No pentium but the 386 did appear on the S100 bus.

Allison

...

  Zane wrote....
 > Wrong.  The 10 year rule still makes sense.  What you are saying is that 
 > no
 > new systems will be added, and that this is a dying hobby.  
  Wrong. Just because I said the "10 year
rule" is no longer active on the 
 list, does NOT mean that in it's place is a firm year cutoff instead. 
 NEITHER are acceptable.  
 Even in the beginning the "10 year rule" wasn't considered to be perfect,
it
 was a compromise.  It was also recognized that an arbitrary cut-off at 10
 years was bad, as systems newer than 10 years could be considered a classic. 
One great advantage of the 10 year rule was that it was easy to use. It 
was pretty easy to dermine if a machine was over 10 years old or not. 
Other definitions of 'classicness' seem much harder to apply.

  I personally don't consider a Sun workstation
a classic, I consider it a 
As a PERQ-fanatic I can't like Suns, right :-). But more seriously, I 
would certainly consider a Sun 1 or Sun 2 to be a classic.

  workhorse.  I'm sure there are plenty here
that disagree.  At the same time
 I consider at least all pre-PCI Sun HW to be ontopic for this list.

 Shoot, I don't even consider most (if not all VAXen) to be classics! 
 They're still widely used in businesses, and after the MicroVAX II, I for
 one don't find the hardware that interesting.  I do however, think that they
 are great for supporting systems I do consider to be classics, namely
 PDP-11's.  BTW, I run a VAX 24x7. 
Hmm.. I think the 11/730 _is_ a classic. To fit a complete VAX into 3 
hex-height boards using almost all standard chips (there are 2 custom 
gate arrays for the memory ECC logic, the rest is microcode RAM, 2901s, 
and a lot of PALs) is a wonderful piece of design. 

And as a hardware hacker, I really see little difference between an 
11/730 or an 11/780 and the older PDP11s that I know and love...

I have difficulty thinking of anything made by Sinclair as a classic. But 
I know others will disagree, and for good reasons (given _their_ 
interests). 

-tony 