23 Jan
2012
23 Jan
'12
9:44 p.m.
Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of defining our
interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in that x86 clone
PC running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have just unearthed in your
garage?
I've been trying to put the word about a bit locally that I'm interested in
rescuing vintage machines, but boy is it ever a struggle - sifting through
offers of "very big, old computers" that turn out to just be PCs running a
decade-old version of MS Windows is getting a little tiring (that's when
the "very big, old computer" doesn't turn out to be just a CRT monitor, of
course, which happened to me twice last week)
Maybe someone's cracked this particular nut and got the wording down just
right - or maybe everyone just lives with it. Setting a cut-off date of
1990 (say) wouldn't work, I think, because a) it might cut out a few
interesting non-PC/non-Apple items, and b) a lot of people out there really
seem to have no idea how *new* the item that they have is.
Idle thoughts for an afternoon, anyway...
cheers
Jules
23 Jan
23 Jan
9:45 p.m.
Easy: Anything built before PC-XT. And some.
---
Enviado do meu Motorola PT550
Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jules Richardson" <jules.richardson99 at gmail.com>
To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Monday, January 23, 2012 7:44 PM
Subject: defining 'vintage'
Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of defining our
interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in that x86 clone
PC running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have just unearthed in your
garage?
I've been trying to put the word about a bit locally that I'm interested
in rescuing vintage machines, but boy is it ever a struggle - sifting
through offers of "very big, old computers" that turn out to just be PCs
running a decade-old version of MS Windows is getting a little tiring
(that's when the "very big, old computer" doesn't turn out to be just a
CRT monitor, of course, which happened to me twice last week)
Maybe someone's cracked this particular nut and got the wording down just
right - or maybe everyone just lives with it. Setting a cut-off date of
1990 (say) wouldn't work, I think, because a) it might cut out a few
interesting non-PC/non-Apple items, and b) a lot of people out there
really seem to have no idea how *new* the item that they have is.
Idle thoughts for an afternoon, anyway...
cheers
Jules
10:28 p.m.
Easy: Anything built before PC-XT. And some.
While I would agree that just about any computer made before the PC/XT is
'vintage', I think there were some machines made after that date that are
also vintage/interesting (Acorn Archimedes, some HP machines, some
PDP11s, CoCo3, possibly the PERQ T4 (I forget the exact date of the
PC/XT), etc). It would be a pity to miss out on those.
-tony
9:54 p.m.
On 23 January 2012 21:44, Jules Richardson <jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote:
Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of defining our
interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in that x86 clone PC
running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have just unearthed in your
garage?
I have found being ultra-specific sometimes works ... a wanted ad for
BBC Micro bits on a neighbouring freecycle/freegle group some time
back produced a "My husband has a disc drive" that turned into several
entire systems and two filestores ! (Which I still need to
investigate... one I get the study organised with some space for
play!)
9:55 p.m.
Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way
of defining our
interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in that x86
clone PC running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have just
unearthed in your garage?
I haven't, except to people who, while perhaps not _sharing_ the
mindset, understand it enough that they don't really need to have it
explained.
But I haven't put much thought into it, because (a) I consider turning
down (or otherwise dealing with) a dozen boring peecees to be a small
price to pay to get hold of that one oddball something-or-other from
$WHENEVER, and (b) even the peecees hold _some_ value for me.
Given a steady stream of boring x86 boxen, which I seem to have, I can
just use them as throwaway computron sources - use them for the
applications where I don't care about the machine enough that using a
vintage machine is worth doing, and, when one breaks, throw it out
(whatever that means) and put in another one.
Furthermore, they often include repurposeable extractable bits such as
disks and PCI cards, many of which are useful in *interesting*
machines.
Of course, my tradeoffs are not everyone's; my approach is not
necessarily suitable for you, or anyone else for that matter.
/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
10:59 p.m.
On Jan 23, 2012, at 4:55 PM, Mouse wrote:
Furthermore, they often include repurposeable
extractable bits such as
disks and PCI cards, many of which are useful in *interesting*
machines.
Yes, that's actually why I typically take in older PCs (old enough that they don't
have all that functionality integrated on the motherboard). That, and occasionally I get
a 286, 386 or 486 which I can use for hobby projects (less and less these days, though).
- Dave
11:49 p.m.
These days I got some brand new XT boards :o) Dunno how common these are
in USA, but in Brazil are **very rare**
http://www.tabajara-labs.blogspot.com/2012/01/quantos-litros-de-baba-voce-q…
---
Enviado do meu Motorola PT550
Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Riley" <fraveydank at gmail.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Monday, January 23, 2012 8:59 PM
Subject: Re: defining 'vintage'
On Jan 23, 2012, at 4:55 PM, Mouse wrote:
Furthermore, they often include repurposeable
extractable bits such as
disks and PCI cards, many of which are useful in *interesting*
machines.
Yes, that's actually why I typically take in older PCs (old enough that
they don't have all that functionality integrated on the motherboard).
That, and occasionally I get a 286, 386 or 486 which I can use for hobby
projects (less and less these days, though).
- Dave
24 Jan
24 Jan
2:31 a.m.
On Mon, 23 Jan 2012, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote:
These days I got some brand new XT boards :o) Dunno how common these are
in USA, but in Brazil are **very rare**
http://www.tabajara-labs.blogspot.com/2012/01/quantos-litros-de-baba-voce-q…
Great score!
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
4:46 a.m.
On Mon, 23 Jan 2012, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote:
These days I got some brand new XT boards :o) Dunno how common
these are
in USA, but in Brazil are **very rare**
http://www.tabajara-labs.blogspot.com/2012/01/quantos-litros-de-
ba
ba-voce-quer-babar.html
Not uncommon here, but new in box is a different matter.
Does anyone know if the ERSO reference designs used by the Taiwan
clone makers were ever published?
--Chuck
5:58 a.m.
On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 9:31 PM, Gene Buckle <geneb at deltasoft.com> wrote:
On Mon, 23 Jan 2012, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote:
>
> ?These days I got some brand new XT boards :o) Dunno how common these are
> in USA, but in Brazil are **very rare**
They were common here once, but I haven't seen one in the bag in a
long, long time.
>
?http://www.tabajara-labs.blogspot.com/2012/01/quantos-litros-de-baba-voce-quer-babar.html
Nice.
I only used an XT clone at home for a short time - picked it up used
for, ISTR, $100, when that was a good price, then parted it out for
about $150-$200 to about 5 different buyers. It was unremarkable -
Taiwanese motherboard, Everex WX-1 clone, Seagate ST225, clone mono
video, amber monitor, etc... but $20 here, $25 there added up.
I think the only practical use I put it to was running Morse Code
tutorials prior to sitting for my Ham license 20+ years ago. There
were lots of DOS-based tutorials and precious few, if any, for the
Amiga. I did end up passing the 5 WPM level.
If I set up an XT now, I'm not sure what I'd do with it beyond demo
8-bit games. I don't think I have the patience to noodle around on a
DOS box under a 386-DX/25 anymore (too many hours at work on a
386-SX/16 in the mid-1990s, I'd say).
But that's still a nice score.
-ethan
9:33 a.m.
If I set up an XT now, I'm not sure what I'd
do with it beyond demo
8-bit games. I don't think I have the patience to noodle around on a
DOS box under a 386-DX/25 anymore (too many hours at work on a
386-SX/16 in the mid-1990s, I'd say).
I don't think I'll ever put this lot to work. But a XT would be nice to
learn more and teach digital logic applied to a PC. At least you have pins
to connect the logic analyzer :)
5:11 p.m.
On 24 Jan 2012 at 7:33, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote:
> If I set up an XT now, I'm not sure what
I'd do with it beyond demo
> 8-bit games. I don't think I have the patience to noodle around on
> a DOS box under a 386-DX/25 anymore (too many hours at work on a
> 386-SX/16 in the mid-1990s, I'd say).
Fit it with a solid-state hard drive and it's not too bad. There a
few bits of equipment that I own (e.g. PROM programmers, special disk
(e.g. Matchpoint) that require the slow speeds of these CPUs owing to
their CPU timing loops. So I keep a couple of clones in good
operating condition.
--Chuck
7:31 p.m.
On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 12:11 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
I have an XT-IDE that I need to build. That plus an IDE-CF adapter
(which I also have) would fit the bill.
> If I set
up an XT now, I'm not sure what I'd do with it beyond demo
> 8-bit games. ?I don't think I have the patience to noodle around on
> a DOS box under a 386-DX/25 anymore...
Fit it with a solid-state hard drive and it's not too bad. ?There a few bits of equipment that I own (e.g. PROM
programmers...)
that require the slow speeds of these CPUs owing to
their CPU timing loops. ?So I keep a couple of clones in good
operating condition.
I have a B&C Microsystems UP600A programmer that matches that
description. I have it attached to a Compaq 286/SLT - the proprietary
parallel card is in the docking station (along with a 10Mbps Ethernet
card that I use with DOS Kermit). It works with a 10-ish MHz 286. It
does not work on a 25-ish MHz 386. ISTR the "AT Bus" on a 25MHz 386
is clocked at 8.333MHz (clock/3), *not* 8.0MHz. It could be related
to that, even with the Turbo button off (which should help the issue
of CPU timing loops). I didn't dig very far into the incompatibility.
It was easier just to use an older machine, and the 286/SLT has the
advantage of being self-contained and portable.
-ethan
25 Jan
25 Jan
3:58 a.m.
________________________________
From: Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com>
I only used an XT clone at home for a short time - picked it up used
for, ISTR, $100, when that was a good price, then parted it out for
about $150-$200 to about 5 different buyers.? It was unremarkable -
Taiwanese motherboard, Everex WX-1 clone, Seagate ST225, clone mono
video, amber monitor, etc... but $20 here, $25 there added up.
C: I would have to say one of the more striking collectibles I've had the pleasure of
viewing was a brass hand made model steam engine replete w/the original wooden
storage/display box that said "Tenshodo, Ginza, Tokyo". It was made 2 or 3 years
after the bomb was dropped. There was just something awe striking about it. It had
historical significance. Somewhat likewise some of the earliest Taiwanese clones might
inspire in the same way, being they were made a couple of years or perhaps months after a
bomb of a different sort. I hope that my analogy doesn't freak anyone out. It just
might help to put some things in perspective.
3:42 a.m.
________________________________
From: David Riley <fraveydank at gmail.com>
Yes, that's actually why I typically take in older PCs (old enough that they don't
have all that functionality integrated on the motherboard).? That, and occasionally I get
a 286, 386 or 486 which I can use for hobby projects (less and less these days, though).
C: Remember 486s can be used for imaging w/ImageDisk.
?No one should rule out the more interesting vanilla pc clones. If it was made before 85,
it's a win in my book. The earlier you go the rarer they are. Most people know that
you can tell the age of the mobo by looking at the dates on the chips. For instance 8427
means it was manufactured in the 27th week of 1984. Of course you need to know how to
distinguish part codes from date codes. 8253 naturally could be a date code, but
statistically it's bound to be a programmable timer, present on every pc or even
pseudo pc in existence I would have to guess.
?I spied a hacked up (literally) 5160 on display in some guy's window (he was
relocating). I got that and other stuff for 25$ (probably could have payed less, but I
needed some part of that "haul" for something and wasn't in the mood to
haggle). Also obtained an Advanced Micro Technology "AT junior". Sadly mine was
made after IBM forced them to drop the use of _that_ name, and also stop using a
diminutive Charlie Chan in their ads (turns out more then one vendor was doing that) and
externally it is rebadged the AMT junior. But the BIOS screen loads up as "AT
junior". So for me, it was a score. Fun. And illustrative of a lesser known nugget of
peecee history. You gotta be in the know to recognize some stuff.
24 Jan
24 Jan
5:59 p.m.
Mouse wrote:
That always used to be the way I did it, but that was when vintage pickings
were a bit more common, and I was living in an area that had always been
quite technology-focused (so the percentage of folk who knew a PC from
something that wasn't a PC was much higher).
It's a lot different around here; sparse population, and historically very
non-technical (in terms of computing - no problem finding someone e.g. who
knows their way around an engine). There probably never was much 'big iron'
around here, but I think there might be vintage 'home' machines still
lurking, particularly as the low population density equates to dwellings
with lots of storage space and hence less need to periodically haul clutter
to landfill.
Problem right now is that I'm getting quite a few older x86 PCs and no
bites with anything that I actually *do* want - as you say, a few older PCs
and parts can be useful, but I'm getting to the point where I'll have more
than I'll ever need.
cheers
Jules
Hmm, have
people on here ever found a *sensible* way of defining our
interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in that x86
clone PC running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have just
unearthed in your garage?
I haven't, except to people who, while perhaps not _sharing_ the
mindset, understand it enough that they don't really need to have it
explained.
But I haven't put much thought into it, because (a) I consider turning
down (or otherwise dealing with) a dozen boring peecees to be a small
price to pay to get hold of that one oddball something-or-other from
$WHENEVER, and (b) even the peecees hold _some_ value for me.
Given a steady stream of boring x86 boxen, which I seem to have, I can
just use them as throwaway computron sources - use them for the
applications where I don't care about the machine enough that using a
vintage machine is worth doing, and, when one breaks, throw it out
(whatever that means) and put in another one.
Furthermore, they often include repurposeable extractable bits such as
disks and PCI cards, many of which are useful in *interesting*
machines.
23 Jan
23 Jan
10:24 p.m.
Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of defining our
interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in that x86 clone
PC running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have just unearthed in your
garage?
When I mention to j-random-public that I am interested in old computers,
I add 'And that doesn't mean 486 PCs'.
You could try 'not PC clones or Macs', but (a) you might miss out on some
intersting stuff (like a PC clone with soem odd expansion boards in it)
and (b) you'll probalby end up beiong offered C64s/Spectrums (which may
or may not be what you want).
-tony
24 Jan
24 Jan
12:51 a.m.
Eric Smith wrote:
Tony Duell wrote:
I think part of the problem I'm hitting is that people really have no
concept of age; they don't know the difference between a 486 PC and a much
newer machine running at several 2GHz - if it's more than a couple of years
old, it's just an "old, slow computer" to them.
When I mention to j-random-public that I am
interested in old
computers, I add 'And that doesn't mean 486 PCs'.
"486 PCs"? People now think that an old computer is a Pentium 4 or Core
2. The 486 must have been something used by the ancient Egyptians.
1:01 a.m.
On Jan 23, 2012, at 7:51 PM, Jules Richardson wrote:
I think part of the problem I'm hitting is that
people really have no concept of age; they don't know the difference between a 486 PC
and a much newer machine running at several 2GHz - if it's more than a couple of years
old, it's just an "old, slow computer" to them.
Of course, most of this is due to the fact that a 2 GHz Core 2 Duo runs its generation of
software just as slow as a 486 did its generation. To the user, it might as well be the
same, modulo some graphical improvements. Software engineers pissing away the results of
Moore's Law, all of 'em...
- Dave
1:58 a.m.
On 23 Jan 2012 at 20:01, David Riley wrote:
Of course, most of this is due to the fact that a 2
GHz Core 2 Duo
runs its generation of software just as slow as a 486 did its
generation. To the user, it might as well be the same, modulo some
graphical improvements. Software engineers pissing away the results
of Moore's Law, all of 'em...
Not just Moore's law as I understand it, but it seems that storage is
expanding at about the same rate. Multi-terabyte consumer hard
drives today; multi-gigabyte 15 years ago; mult-megabyte 15 years
before that.
Take a look at some of the "lightweight" Linux distros and see what
they want in hard disk storage (e.g. The web site for Puppy Linux
indicates that 4.5GB would be appropriate). 15 years ago, defining a
4.5GB storage requirement as "lightweight" would have sounded
ludicrous.
So, it's happening in that area too. So 15 years from now, will we
have Petabyte notebook consumer drives on systems with a terabyte of
memory with a thousand cores?
Not criticizing, just reflecting on how far we've come.
--Chuck
2:20 a.m.
On Jan 23, 2012, at 8:58 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Not criticizing, just reflecting on how far we've
come.
I guess I wouldn't be criticizing if it weren't for the fact that with all those
advances, everything still runs at the same approximate apparent speed. It takes over a
minute to boot all of my modern machines off of rather fast hard drives (even with boot
caching), while it took 20 seconds to boot my Mac Plus from a floppy. Apples to oranges,
I guess, but it's disappointing. We live in the future, but the future sure seems
bloated.
- Dave
25 Jan
25 Jan
6:49 p.m.
Not
criticizing, just reflecting on how far we've come.
I guess I wouldn't be
criticizing if it weren't for the fact that
with all those advances, everything still runs at the same
approximate apparent speed. 
9:29 p.m.
On 25 January 2012 18:49, Mouse <mouse at rodents-montreal.org> wrote:
There's a quote I saw, from Seth Breidbart - he of Breidbart Index fame
on Usenet - that goes something like "WordStar on a 4.077 MHz 8086
could keep up with my typing; WinWord on a 300MHz Pentium III can't".
Of course, one of the joys of PC compatibles is that if you want, you
can run that copy of WordStar on your 300MHz PII - or on a 3000MHz
Core i7. And by the hypothetical deities, it flies along if you do.
Me, I run Word 97. On a modern box, it's very quick indeed.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
Not criticizing, just reflecting on how far we've
come.
I guess I wouldn't be criticizing if it weren't for the fact that
with all those advances, everything still runs at the same
approximate apparent speed.
24 Jan
24 Jan
8:31 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
Absolutley. But a 486 PC is stil ltoo modern to be of interest to me.
Some people are truely amazed when I show them my earliest personal
computer which is now nearly 40 years old. They are even more suprised
when I flip the switch and it works.
-tony
When I mention to j-random-public that I am
interested in old
computers, I add 'And that doesn't mean 486 PCs'.
"486 PCs"? People now think that an old computer is a Pentium 4 or Core
2. The 486 must have been something used by the ancient Egyptians. 
23 Jan
23 Jan
11:18 p.m.
On Mon, 23 Jan 2012, Jules Richardson wrote:
Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way
of defining our
interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in that x86 clone
PC running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have just unearthed in your
garage?
Y'mean it's NOT "10 years old" (to the nearest month)?
or "Pre August 1981"?
"Must NOT be Y2K compliant!"
"I don't know 'what is "ART"?', but I know it when I see
it."
(or was that "porn"?)
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
24 Jan
24 Jan
8:29 p.m.
On Mon, 23 Jan 2012, Jules Richardson wrote:
There are, of course, many interesting machines that were designed or
built after the IBM PC. Some of them even had 80c86 processors...
Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible*
way of defining our
interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in that x86 clone
PC running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have just unearthed in your
garage?
Y'mean it's NOT "10 years old" (to the nearest month)?
or "Pre August 1981"? "Must NOT be Y2K compliant!"
Actually, a fair numbero of vitnage computers don't have real time clocks
at all (or a dated filesystem), so they have no concept of the year.
Those are surely Y2K compliant.
I think the simnplest solution is, alas, to look at anything offered. If
it's of use (even if not a 'vintage' machine by any reasonable
definition, then accept it with thanks. If it's not, then politely
explain why it's not the sort of thing you collect, but do ask if there's
anyything else around (at least once the donor has said 'Oh, I didn't
think anyone would want that old stuff', and then been given a CP/M
machine)
-tony
10:07 p.m.
On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 3:29 PM, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
C-64 (TI$ time-of-day string, but no date. No date or time on CBM DOS
floppies, either).
I don't think anyone could (successfully) argue that the C-64 isn't in play.
-ethan
>
> On Mon, 23 Jan 2012, Jules Richardson wrote:
> Y'mean it's NOT... "Pre August 1981"?
C-64. Announced Jan, 1982, started shipping Oct, 1982.
"Must NOT
be Y2K compliant!"
Actually, a fair numbero of vitnage computers don't have real time clocks
at all (or a dated filesystem), so they have no concept of the year.
25 Jan
25 Jan
3:47 a.m.
________________________________
From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com>
Y'mean it's NOT "10 years old" (to the nearest month)?
or "Pre August 1981"?
"Must NOT be Y2K compliant!"
C: That would rule out my Texas Instruments Professional and Portable Professional (the
first mass manufactured color portable to hit the market). A year or two before the new
millennium, I changed the date on my TIPC to 12-31-99, 23:59:00. The transition to future
was smooth. Arguably that was my first vintage computer. Long before I started collecting.
Haven't tried anything else. But I'll be sure and get on it.
23 Jan
23 Jan
11:32 p.m.
Never heard anyone with the answer. Vintage is era and age mentality specific, so really
I think you'll be stuck with the timeline to weed out the majority, or sift through
the offers. Eventually we'll all be kicking ourselves for not hanging on the Xeon and
2000 based electronics.
Kinda one of those beggars can't be choosers philosophies ;-) I used to get pissed
off at Goodwill for taking only newer computers which now adays they don't, they take
lots of great vintage systems and send them to the chipper too now.
--- On Mon, 1/23/12, Jules Richardson <jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote:
From: Jules Richardson <jules.richardson99 at
gmail.com>
Subject: defining 'vintage'
To: "cctalk at classiccmp.org" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Date: Monday, January 23, 2012, 3:44 PM
Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of
defining our interests such that it's obvious we're *not*
interested in that x86 clone PC running Windows that you
bought in 2002 and have just unearthed in your garage?
25 Jan
25 Jan
12:40 a.m.
Sam Onella wrote:
Eventually we'll all be
kicking ourselves for not hanging on the Xeon and 2000 based
electronics.
I don't agree there; my guess is that "current" tech of the future will
nearly always have some form of emulation/VM software available to allow
the PC software of today to run - and if at some point that's not the case,
then the time that it stops being true is the time to take a snapshot of
the available hardware of the day. I can't see the point in rescuing a
modern 3GHz PC that runs Windows XP (say) when I could just as well wait a
handful of years and rescue a 2 year old 10GHz PC that will happily run XP
in a VM at a faster rate than the 3GHz system.
Hardware-wise, there's nothing interesting about modern PCs. I really can't
see myself looking back in ten or fifteen years and wishing I had one.
There's just nothing 'cool' about them, no nostalgia value; they're just
beige boxes that crunch numbers. They don't even have ports any more that
are really useful to me (unlike serial / parallel / SCSI etc. on ones of
the 80s and 90s) where I can easily twiddle bits and "do stuff" if I want.
Sure, I bet there are some niche bits of hardware out there that are pretty
neat and worth saving - but the 'commodity' stuff is just boring, will
always be boring, and for the foreseeable future will be succeeded by
machines that are just faster versions of the boring hardware of today.
Right, well that's me thoroughly depressed... ;-)
cheers
Jules
1:08 a.m.
On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 7:40 PM, Jules Richardson
<jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote:
Sam Onella wrote:
I concur.
Eventually we'll all be
kicking ourselves for not hanging on the Xeon and 2000 based
electronics.
I don't agree there; my guess is that "current" tech of the
future will
nearly always have some form of emulation/VM software available to allow the
PC software of today to run
Yep. We are largely there already.
Hardware-wise, there's nothing interesting about
modern PCs. I really can't
see myself looking back in ten or fifteen years and wishing I had one.
Perhaps there will be certain, specific models that are for some
reason interesting, but 99%? Nope.
There's just nothing 'cool' about them, no
nostalgia value; they're just
beige boxes that crunch numbers.
True, anymore.
They don't even have ports any more that
are really useful to me (unlike serial / parallel / SCSI etc. on ones of the
80s and 90s) where I can easily twiddle bits and "do stuff" if I want.
There's where I do keep a few machines around - I do twiddle stuff
that needs real serial ports (110 bps anyone?) and real parallel ports
(bit-banged devices hung off of "printer" ports) and SCSI.
Sure, I bet there are some niche bits of hardware out
there that are pretty
neat and worth saving - but the 'commodity' stuff is just boring, will
always be boring, and for the foreseeable future will be succeeded by
machines that are just faster versions of the boring hardware of today.
I'm in a mild conundrum about a piece I ran across while cleaning up
just last night. I dug out some flavor of slow Pentium-1 board, slow
enough it has a heat sink, not a fan, and while the board is plenty
fast enough for a dedicated purpose I'd like to put it to (Daphne
engine to run Dragon's Lair and Space Ace), unfortunately, some time
in the past, the NiCd battery leaked and I removed it. The damage
must have been not visible at the time, but there sure are damaged
traces now. I can't imagine spending a lot of time on a Socket 5
board to get it to work, OTOH, all the "recent" hardware wants massive
heat sinks, fans, lacks ports, etc. So I doubt I'l put much effort
into repairing a Socket 5 board with an SiS chipset, but I could use a
pre-1999 board to take its place.
So... old and semi-boring, but not exactly interchangable with "new"
gear. In a sense, it's taking desktop hardware and making an embedded
project out of it, so that _adds_ interest.
-ethan
2:36 a.m.
On 01/24/2012 08:08 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Hence the older 486 pizza box, a K2/450 I ran NT4 on and a 386sx25
mini format board that works but I haven't tossed for some odd reason.
They still exist mostly as they can take the ISA cards like IEEE-488,
National process IO cards, or simple bus level interfaces.
They are all utility boards/boxes. One of the 486s runs boards to do eprom
programming, another board for logic analyser, and that sort of stuff.
Since they are useful they exist otherwise they would be in PC junk heaven.
On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 7:40 PM, Jules Richardson
<jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote:
Same here. PCs are meh! I have several 486/dx66 but they only exist as
they
can run old bus cards and that is useful but not for historical reasons.
Sam Onella wrote:
I concur. Eventually we'll all be
kicking ourselves for not hanging on the Xeon and 2000 based
electronics.
I don't agree there; Hardware-wise, there's nothing interesting about
modern PCs. I really
can't
Agreed but I do have one oddity of the DOS era, a Tandy HX1000 because
it's odd mostly and useless.
see myself looking back in ten or fifteen years
and wishing I had one.
Perhaps there will be certain, specific models that are for
some
reason interesting, but 99%? Nope.
They don't even have ports any more that
are really useful to me (unlike serial / parallel / SCSI etc. on ones of the
80s and 90s) where I can easily twiddle bits and "do stuff" if I want.
There's where I do keep a few machines around - I do twiddle stuff
that needs real serial ports (110 bps anyone?) and real parallel ports
(bit-banged devices hung off of "printer" ports) and SCSI.
So... old and semi-boring, but not exactly
interchangable with "new"
gear. In a sense, it's taking desktop hardware and making an embedded
project out of it, so that _adds_ interest.
The biggest reason for having old PCs is to run old hardware that can't
plug into the new and may not be available in USB or whatever port
is there now.
Compared to every other computer I have PCs have been expendable
and like a hacksaw blades mostly useless when they are too slow
or so unsupported by reasonable OSs that are useful.
PCs to me fall out as they have mostly broken the 10year rule.
While in 10 years they have gotten faster and cheaper they have
generally gotten no more interesting save for being tools. They
have gotten so much more complex that understanding one
completely is pointless as the standards they are based on are
likely in the class of, lagging the implementation, if you can get
them. That and if you can buy the machine its already obsolete
and the software barely fully uses its features yet.
Then there is software. DOS was really all there was , then win3.1, or OS2,
then the win9x and NT and finally I got off that wagon for Linux. At
least
linux still has the same command line as my PDP11 running unix V6
and oddly it's useful still.
In short PCs are not fun.
Allison
1:15 a.m.
Hardware-wise, there's nothing interesting about
modern PCs. [...]
Very similar words could well have been said about things like the C64
and 68k-based Macs back when they were a year or two old. Today,
they're much sought after.
If it turns out you're right that commodity computers ten years from
now will be just faster peecees, then you are probably right. (I
suspect that will be the case, but of course I don't know any more than
anyone else does.) But if the world lurches away from peecees to
something else, it wouldn't surprise me if they became sought-after
nostalgia items.
/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
10:29 a.m.
I have quite a few commodity machines in the basement for no other reason
then I collect AGP video gaming cards and need something to run them in. AGP
is dead and obsolete just like Nubus, MCA, PCIX, ISA, EISA, VLB and I
collect that stuff as well.
Trust me 5-15 year old commodity equipment will be collectable just like
commodity 386 machines especially when the vast majority of it is being
recycled before it gets stuffed into an attic. A 286-8 CPU will pretty much
last forever, a 3.8Ghz P4 HT CPU will not just because of ion migration from
the heat. Heck there are tons of AGP gaming cards that are dead now while I
have never pulled an ISA/VLB card out of a dusty stack that didn't work. If
anything the shift from bulky desktops to laptops for general use will shift
the hobby from collecting desktops to laptops in the next few decades or so
(good luck finding mint working P4M laptops by then). I also think people
will be living in smaller homes (and maybe more apartments) down the road as
wages drop more, so peoples collections will need to take up less space.
You people sound like old farts who think no car made after the Model T will
be collectable or worth anything. Different generations will collect
different era machines for different reasons.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mouse" <mouse at rodents-montreal.org>
To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 8:15 PM
Subject: Re: defining 'vintage'
Hardware-wise,
there's nothing interesting about modern PCs. [...]
Very similar words could well have been said about things like the C64
and 68k-based Macs back when they were a year or two old. Today,
they're much sought after.
If it turns out you're right that commodity computers ten years from
now will be just faster peecees, then you are probably right. (I
suspect that will be the case, but of course I don't know any more than
anyone else does.) But if the world lurches away from peecees to
something else, it wouldn't surprise me if they became sought-after
nostalgia items.
/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
1:47 p.m.
Mouse wrote:
Well, they were common enough back then, certainly - but there was enough
diversity in the industry that I think most people with an interest in the
hardware of the day could see that they'd perhaps be desirable in the future.
Hardware-wise,
there's nothing interesting about modern PCs. [...]
Very similar words could well have been said about things like the C64
and 68k-based Macs back when they were a year or two old. Today,
they're much sought after. If it turns out you're right that commodity
computers ten years from
now will be just faster peecees, then you are probably right. (I
suspect that will be the case, but of course I don't know any more than
anyone else does.) But if the world lurches away from peecees to
something else, it wouldn't surprise me if they became sought-after
nostalgia items.
But my point is that I think even if the hardware of the future is
"something else", it'll still be capable of running the software of today;
and there's no real "user experience" in today's hardware.
If, at some point, that stops being true for whatever reason, then that's
the point to start collecting the 'last known good' hardware that will do
the job.
cheers
Jules
6:47 a.m.
Zitat von Jules Richardson <jules.richardson99 at gmail.com>:
they're just beige boxes that crunch numbers. They
don't even have
ports any more that are really useful to me (unlike serial / parallel /
SCSI etc. on ones of the 80s and 90s) where I can easily twiddle bits
and "do stuff" if I want.
IMHO, that's the real point. You can't attach any "old" stuff to them
anymore, so we all have our '486 in the garage to copy/test
floppies/tapes/drives.
Looking at PCs, they will have in few year many terrabytes of
diskspace to boot win 10/11, but effectively, all the data is in the
cloud. So if you flip the switch, you boot something which interprets
the data you're getting from the internet and send it back, while your
data is located in a big data center somewhere else.
Didn't we call them terminals back then?
;-)
7:44 p.m.
________________________________
From: "emu at e-bbes.com" <emu at e-bbes.com>
Looking at PCs, they will have in few year many terrabytes of diskspace to boot win 10/11,
but effectively, all the data is in the cloud. So if you flip the switch, you boot
something which interprets the data you're getting from the internet and send it back,
while your data is located in a big data center somewhere else.
Didn't we call them terminals back then?
;-)
?Dumb terminals in fact. And they're just as dumb these days. Dumb and getting
dumber.
9:16 p.m.
On Wed, 25 Jan 2012 emu at e-bbes.com wrote:
Looking at PCs, they will have in few year many
terrabytes of
diskspace to boot win 10/11,
And, NEED all of that plus multi-THz processor speed to run the text
editor (at ALMOST as fast as a 2MHz Z80). Whether or not you WANT it,
your grocery list will contain full-motion sound animations. As a "favor
to you", any mention of frozen vegetables will automatically splice in a
Gree Giant commercial and the latest pop-sci "news" about what is best for
you, and send a copy of your menu to the "server"s at your HMO and
MiniTrue,MiniLuv. and MiniPlenty.
In "Hyperland", Douglas Adams failed to realize the extent of the
insidious incursions of Sirius Cybernetics Corp.
BUT, it is unreasonable to compare the THz MegaCore machine to the 2MHz
Z80, "because it does so much more for you!"
but effectively, all the data is in the
cloud. So if you flip the switch, you boot something which interprets
the data you're getting from the internet and send it back, while your
data is located in a big data center somewhere else.
Didn't we call them terminals back then?
;-)
. . . and then "thin client"s.
NOW, "BLOATED clients"
"Your plastic pal who's fun to be with!" (with RPP!)
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
9:50 p.m.
On Jan 25, 2012, at 4:16 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
editor (at ALMOST as fast as a 2MHz Z80). Whether or
not you WANT it,
your grocery list will contain full-motion sound animations. As a "favor
Well, we had that in the '90s with Clippy, didn't we?
"It looks like you're making a list! Is this a business list or a personal list?
Which of these six inappropriate numbering schemes would you like to use? Never mind,
I'll pick one for you!"
- Dave
2:12 a.m.
Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way
of defining our
interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in that x86
clone PC running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have just
unearthed in your garage?
Yes. Just say, "No PC clones running Windows."
How hard is that?
2:22 a.m.
On Jan 23, 2012, at 9:12 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote:
Saying it is easy. Getting people to believe it is another thing. "But... but
it's running, like, Windows 95. Isn't that vintage? Seems like your sort of
thing."
- Dave
Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible*
way of defining our interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in
that x86 clone PC running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have just unearthed in your
garage?
Yes. Just say, "No PC clones running Windows."
How hard is that?
4:38 a.m.
On 23 Jan 2012 at 21:22, David Riley wrote:
But I assume a Rainbow 100 running Windows 1.0 is okay?
I'm confused.
--Chuck
Yes. Just say,
"No PC clones running Windows."
How hard is that?
Saying it is easy. Getting people to believe it is another thing.
"But... but it's running, like, Windows 95. Isn't that vintage?
Seems like your sort of thing."
5:05 a.m.
Yes. Just say, "No PC clones running
Windows."
How hard is that?
Saying it is easy. Getting people to believe it is another
thing. "But... but it's running, like, Windows 95. Isn't that vintage?
Seems like your sort of thing." 
6:21 a.m.
On Jan 23, 2012, at 9:22 PM, David Riley <fraveydank at gmail.com> wrote:
On Jan 23, 2012, at 9:12 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote:
Saying it is easy. Getting people to believe it is another thing. "But... but
it's running, like, Windows 95. Isn't that vintage? Seems like your sort of
thing."
I've run into that. I deal with it by whipping out my phone and showing the
offending party a picture of something serious; my PDP-11/70 usually works well.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
New Kensington, PA
Hmm, have
people on here ever found a *sensible* way of defining our interests such that it's
obvious we're *not* interested in that x86 clone PC running Windows that you bought in
2002 and have just unearthed in your garage?
Yes. Just say, "No PC clones running Windows."
How hard is that?
2:07 p.m.
Dave McGuire wrote:
On Jan 23, 2012, at 9:22 PM, David Riley
<fraveydank at gmail.com> wrote:
:-) I had it again yesterday with a "very old" computer where the only
other detail from person who had it was that it said 'Sigma' on it. Of
course I wasn't expecting there to be an intact SDS machine lurking around
here, particularly when they offered to meet me in town with it (bringing a
truck, are we?), but it was still sensible to chase things to their
conclusion just on the very slim chance that it was a small part of an SDS
system, which would still be worth saving from the dump.
I've since managed to get a photo from them - it's (you've guessed it) an
x86 clone PC, maybe 15 years old at the most...
cheers
Jules
On Jan 23, 2012, at 9:12 PM, Evan Koblentz
wrote:
Saying it is easy. Getting people to believe it is another
thing.
"But... but it's running, like, Windows 95. Isn't that vintage?
Seems like your sort of thing."
I've run into that. I deal with it by whipping out my phone and showing
the offending party a picture of something serious; my PDP-11/70 usually
works well. Hmm, have
people on here ever found a *sensible* way of defining
our interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in
that x86 clone PC running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have
just unearthed in your garage?
Yes. Just say, "No PC clones running
Windows."
How hard is that? 
8:10 a.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of David Riley
Sent: 24 January 2012 02:23
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: defining 'vintage'
On Jan 23, 2012, at 9:12 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote:
All rules have exceptions?
> Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of
defining our
interests such that it's obvious we're *not*
interested in that x86 clone PC running Windows that you
bought in 2002 and have just unearthed in your garage?
Yes. Just say, "No PC clones running Windows."
How hard is that?
Saying it is easy. Getting people to believe it is
another
thing. "But... but it's running, like, Windows 95. Isn't
that vintage? Seems like your sort of thing."
I guess that Windows 1.0 might be of interest to some people, and what about
OS/2 that ran Windows programs...
- Dave
8:38 a.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave" <dave.g4ugm at gmail.com>
To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 3:10 AM
Subject: RE: defining 'vintage'
The problem you tend to have is the people who are ditching these old
machines are not the original owners (grandpa died and we are cleaning out
the attic type of thing) or just some reseller who got some old crap dumped
on him he wants gone with no fuss. So people have no clue how to turn the
machine on or what OS if any is loaded into it. Asking them to see if it
works means you have the possibility of people plugging in CGA monitors in
the the wrong ports and blowing things up. Non hobbyists also have no clue
how old a computer is (anything not in a black case is vintage to them). You
can probably start by mentioning does it have a 5.25" floppy drive which
means it is early 90's or older. Is that floppy drive in a separate
enclosure (that gets you into 8 bit computer territory like C64/Atari 800
etc)? People also tend to think of anything that doesn't look normal as
maybe a server (could also be because it is made of solid metal and not
flimsy aluminum), who knows what will turn up.Anybody who kept a 20+ year
old machine (remember that's a 486 era and older) might have kept the
software as well, asking about a few titles will give you a clue of what the
machine is or hell just grab the software!
-----Original
Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of David Riley
Sent: 24 January 2012 02:23
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: defining 'vintage'
On Jan 23, 2012, at 9:12 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote:
All rules have exceptions?
> Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of
defining our interests
such that it's obvious we're *not*
interested in that x86 clone PC running Windows that you
bought in 2002 and have just unearthed in your garage?
Yes. Just say, "No PC clones running Windows."
How hard is that?
Saying it is easy. Getting people to believe it
is another
thing. "But... but it's running, like, Windows 95. Isn't
that vintage? Seems like your sort of thing."
I guess that Windows 1.0 might be of interest to some people, and what
about
OS/2 that ran Windows programs...
>
> - Dave
>
5:47 p.m.
TeoZ wrote:
The problem you tend to have is the people who are
ditching these old
machines are not the original owners (grandpa died and we are cleaning
out the attic type of thing) or just some reseller who got some old crap
dumped on him he wants gone with no fuss. So people have no clue how to
turn the machine on or what OS if any is loaded into it.
Right... but it seems that to most people, there's no difference between
the beige box of an x86 PC and a Commodore 64, say; to them, they're both
just "old computers". There probably is no sensible way of explaining it in
terms that non-tech-savvy people can understand, but I thought it wouldn't
hurt to ask the list in case someone's somehow managed to crack the problem :-)
cheers
Jules
7:49 p.m.
can probably start by mentioning does it have a
5.25" floppy drive which
means it is early 90's or older. Is that floppy drive in a separate
enclosure (that gets you into 8 bit computer territory like C64/Atari 800
"What size disks does it use?"
8" = 1975 - 1985
5.25" = 1978 - 1995
3.5" = 1983 - 2005
"What does it weigh?"
"Will it fit in the trunk of a car?"
10:47 p.m.
On 01/24/2012 04:37 PM, Tony Duell wrote:
Yeah, I chuckle at those people with no idea of scale as well,
although it really isn't their fault that they haven't been exposed to it.
A few months ago I got all excited when a friend told me about this
"ABSOLUTELY HUGE!" hard drive that he'd found in a warehouse and had
secured for me. I was envisioning a CDC 9766, and what I got was a
Maxtor 4380E. I appreciated it anyway, though, because I have several
Emulex MD21s. =)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
New Kensington, PA
"What
size disks does it use?"
8" = 1975 - 1985
5.25" = 1978 - 1995
3.5" = 1983 - 2005
I;'ve lost count of the number of times a non-technical person has said
'those big floppy disks'. They mean 5.25", I think of 8" 
10:47 a.m.
On 1/23/2012 11:44 PM, Jules Richardson wrote:
Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of defining our
interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in that x86
clone PC running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have just unearthed
in your garage?
To me, it is computers that were before it become very popular
home/personal devices.
4499
days inactive
4501
days old
53 comments
21 participants
participants (21)
-
ajp166＠verizon.net -
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
barythrin＠yahoo.com -
cclist＠sydex.com -
chrism3667＠yahoo.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
dave.g4ugm＠gmail.com -
dennis_mailing_lists＠conus.info -
emu＠e-bbes.com -
eric＠brouhaha.com -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
evan＠snarc.net -
fraveydank＠gmail.com -
geneb＠deltasoft.com -
jules.richardson99＠gmail.com -
lproven＠gmail.com -
mcguire＠neurotica.com -
mouse＠Rodents-Montreal.ORG -
pu1bzz.listas＠gmail.com -
robert＠irrelevant.com -
teoz＠neo.rr.com