On Fri, Jul 1, 2016 at 11:05 AM, Jay West <jwest at classiccmp.org> wrote: Yes. OS. Thanks for catching that. Seems that several characters got dropped from that post (should say "It also encompasses..." -ethan

I don't think anything ever came of this any of the other myriad of times it was brought up. But that said, it's a landmark system (I'm typing this on a 1GHz iMac G4, which is also a design landmark), it runs a now-unusual desktop architecture, it uses an obsolete operating system (as well as OS X) and it's long past being obsoleted by its manufacturer. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. -L. Nimoy -

On 7/1/2016 11:48 AM, Ian Finder wrote: Computers don't (yet) have voting rights. :-) But you're defining "spirit" and listing criteria by which a machine is appropriate or not. A PS/2 with an 80386 running Windows 3.1 is acceptable, whereas a Packard Bell with an 80386 running Windows 3.1 is not. Yeah, you and I would cringe at a PB being discussed, but maybe there's someone out there who really is fond of their PB. So as Terry ("Tezza") acknowledges, terms like "landmark," "classic," "collectible" are subjective (but I don't think "vintage" is subjective -- that term is usually set by age alone). This is why it's just easier to use a single criteria -- age -- and leave it at that. Why is age acceptable everywhere else in collecting, but not here? Otherwise, someone (the list owner?) has to pontificate over a list of acceptable computers. Good luck with that. - J.

On 1 July 2016 at 20:00, Cameron Kaiser <spectre at floodgap.com> wrote: As I understand it, the Raspberry Pi is not that far off (and before it, the ZX Spectrum). But then, there are half a dozen models of Raspberry Pi, even excluding the Pi Zero. -- 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 Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R)

Of course, if your needs are basic, an old CRT for a few dollars will serve just fine. paul

On 07/01/2016 11:48 AM, Toby Thain wrote: Been there, done that--and even depopulated the inverter section on one PCB (badly designed--capacitors hot-glued to heatsinks, that sort of thing) and replaced it with a cheap "universal" CFL inverter. Still works fine. Strangely, I don't see nearly as many junked LCD displays today as I did 5 years ago for some reason. --Chuck

On 07/01/2016 03:00 PM, TeoZ wrote: I'm still a fan of 4:3 aspect monitors. At least they can get 1200x1600. Most commodity consumer monitors can only do 1080 vertically. I don't think I'm ready to spring for a 4K unit yet. --Chuck

Interestingly, the RPi could result in the resurrection of the X Terminal :-) At work I have a monster desktop that basically serves as just that. With the RPi3 it's now practical to use it to drive the display, letting me turn the desktop beast into a VM host. VM host in the kvm/qemu sense, although I do plan to have it host a VM/370 instance, just to annoy the kiddies at work :-)

On 02/07/2016 14:58, Liam Proven wrote: As ever one English word can have more than one connotation. "Vintage" is no exception. If we dispense with the wine allusion then a more general usage could be "the best example of its type" Adding some kind of chronological definer such as "in the 1960's" would help. Having defined our terms of reference we can then move on to make our choice. Clearly, even with agreed parameters, one person might offer more than one example as a candidate. A group of people will almost certainly produce a selection of answers. So as to if a computer is vintage or not is an opinion. A preponderance of one computer type or model might indicate some group agreement. Rod Smallwood

On 07/02/2016 08:57 AM, william degnan wrote: In my lifetime, I've seen the word "vintage" go from the conventional use of "pertaining to wine produced from a specific year's harvest of grapes" to "something old, but of unspecified age". After all, the "vin-" in the word indicates the wine connection. One can have a vintage 2015 Bordeaux, but apparently not a vintage computer of the same age. Like Humpty-Dumpty's "impenetrability", it can mean whatever we want it to mean, I suppose. --Chuck

This E-mail is being run through a server running AIX on a 2-way POWER6 (an IBM p520). At $10,000 when I bought it (used!) in 2010 ... I, uh, ... I did get a spare backplane for it recently which was around $1800. However, the outside backup spool is a VM slice running FreeBSD because I needed the redundancy; I used to have a peering arrangement with some of my friends and buddies in different geographical areas but they've all stopped running their own local hardware. This may well be the last tank I own and operate. The next iteration might just be one of those cheap ARM things. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Optimization hinders evolution. --------------------------------------------

The hell they don't! Remember when Hanging Chad htrew the deciding vote?

On 7/1/2016 2:33 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: I fully get the distinction between -- for instance -- a classic Ford Mustang and a classic Ford Pinto. Everyone agrees, the Mustangs are classic, but there *are* people who are into Pintos. - J.

Js wrote... ------ Otherwise, someone (the list owner?) has to pontificate over a list of acceptable computers. Good luck with that. ------ Actually, given the number of years (decades) of doing exactly that - I have had very good luck with that and it has worked well. But since it's subjective, it's easy to "move forward". The issue is - setting a specific age, or a specific list of computers, or any one of a number of objective criteria - will leave some people out, and may well need to change over time. And if there is a specific list, any time a change is suggested there will be endless (and flammable) debate. One example - there are machines that I would now consider ok topics for discussion here that I would have never allowed 10 years ago. There are also machines that I would find it hard to believe would ever be on-topic, no matter what their age. Another example - if a longtime listmember that always discusses and contributes well to very on-topic machines one day asks a question about an intel i7 machine - I'm likely to let that slide. A specific list or age precludes that. As a result, what I have done and will continue to do - is make a subjective assessment based on the specific post, what I suspect most of the listmembers feel at the time, the posters proclivity for off-topicness, etc. This is one of those cases where I think subjectivity on my part makes for a better community and user experience than a hard and fast list or age cutoff. If I am (or ever) start doing a bad job of that the users will leave in droves, or stage a mutiny - which I'd deserve at that point. My own (current) thought is that whitebox PC's will never be on topic. Maybe one or two someday might be considered historically important in some way, or have introduced a feature that became important, or gathered a specific following. But that day isn't today. We'll see in another 5 or 10 years perhaps. Best, J

On Fri, Jul 01, 2016 at 07:54:42PM +0200, Liam Proven wrote: Yeah. I was someone like this twenty years ago. Still too undeducated to do what you hardcore guys do, i.e. building mind inverters (or do you call them oscilloscopes when in public) with old radio lamps and asking them those strange questions, like "what ya mean by 42". :-) Well, ok. At least *now* I can build a peecee when given some parts and a screwdriver (and screws but if you only hand me nails I might try too). And I am accumulating my Schwartz to actually buy some prototyping board and u-controller and stuff like this (but mostly, this has more to do with lack of time for such plays). I wonder if some time from now a bunch of vintage fans will pat each other in the backs upon entering a kilobyte of English (or any other natural language of choice) via a physical keyboard. [...] They might be future jewerly makers. I see how stupid it is, using a chip with millions of transistors for its light reflecting value. But the customers are not going to be certain kind of folk. More like lost children in Mad Max 3. I have no idea. To actually use such HW nowadays, and it does not do Angry Fish or faxbook, so one has to have some other use for them. Perhaps having a thing that does not want to befriend me against my will is the point? Very few will appreciate unkindness and go very far to have more of it. -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com **

On Fri, Jul 1, 2016 at 2:42 PM, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote: That's the second time I've seen that term used in the classiccmp realm. The first was when I came across this company: https://www.facebook.com/coprolitecomputers/ [...] OTOH, there were SOME machines that were classic as soon as they existed. "The files are IN the computer! It's so simple." I'm imagining the museum's visitors behaving thusly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2uHBhKTSe0 -- Eric Christopherson