compucolors - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

9 Jan 1999

Roger Merchberger &lt;zmerch(a)30below.com&gt; trashed my theory with:

...
  For the same reason some (many?) people here like
their Commodore 64's &
 VIC-20's. _Personally_, I have no use for them (save a couple from the
 dumpster, but not even powered 'em up -- will be up for trade fodder soon)
 but for a lot of people on this list, they were their first computer.
 Sentimentality goes a *long* way on this list (which is his reason for
 owning the computer you don't want, BTW). Believe me, many folks are just
 as turned off by my RS/Tandys & Ataris & whatnot... but that's o.k. too.

Ya-but...

Look, just like everything else, there's "old good" and "old
shit".  Lots
of mediocre music was written two hundred years ago, which is why I refuse
to acknowledge "classical" music as a genre than has any inherent value in
defining the music.  Just because it's old, it isn't by definition good.

Thus, I don't recognize anything particularly interesting in machines that
were badly-designed landfill-before-their-time any more than I do in mass-
market machines like the Radio Shacks and Ataris you mentioned.  I see a
historical preserve (such as this) as being one better dominated by systems
that were examples of true innovation, and those tend to be the ones below
the radar of the consumer market.  Do I have a problem with people who want
to fill their garages with original chiclet-keyboard-and-internal-cassette
Commodore PET 2001s?  Hell, no.  Enjoy 'em; start your own list dedicated
to 'em; stay outa my receding hair.  I came here to find someone as serious
as me who can help me program 1702s.

This thread was about Compucolors.  I ran a service bench when they first
came out, maintained them, and they were living, breathing junk.  That 
notwithstanding, I held onto a board set and a bunch of parts for many 
years in hope of making it into my first machine with a color display.  
When I discovered old SGIs, you can only guess how fast the Compucolor 
parts hit the dumpster that they so richly deserved.

...
  Hang in there, find the delete key, and I guarantee
you you *will* learn a
 lot while being on this list. I have. 
Wish it was that easy, old son.  On an average day I get about 200 pieces
of "real" (ie non-list) mail.  That's why I insist on receiving ANY list
via digest - I can't afford to have a single list double the number of
messages I receive per day.  So reading a 4500-line, 150-message digest is
a considerable amount of work, and not one that the "delete" key helps with.

Of course I want to learn.  But not at the expense of endless dreary 
discussions in the overpriced-collector-scum vein, or dreary Merka vs. 
Euro drooling.  I'm in Canadia - I'd have to throw rocks at both sides.

Jonathan