Van Burnham wrote:
> xoxo van
Heh, I agreed completely with your stance on for sale posts above, but
then you went waaaaay overboard with the following statements:
> ps...Upon reading the thread regarding the justification in
> maintaining "modifications" made to a 128K Mac, I was reminded of a
> nightmare I witnessed at a vids auction. It appears someone had
> decided that it would be considerably more "state-of-the-art" to play
> something new instead of a slow-ass game called Computer Space...and
> proceeded to destroy the original board and monitor casing in order to
> convert the sleek fiberglass metalflake cabinet to play Pac-Man
> instead. I don't see why defacing a classic Mac (or "Frankentosh" as
> they say) should be regarded as any less horriffic. Am I totally off
> here? Anyone?
Well, there are two huge differences: first, the Mac was designed and
sold as a utilitarian instrument, and its usage was *enhanced*, not
inhibited by the modifications described; and second, near-mint
condition ones are fairly easy to find at $5-to-$20 in most parts of the
civilized world, and it is highly doubtful that it will ever be as hard
to find as a Computer Space. There is no room for a "preserve
everything in original condition" policy. You have to draw the line
somewhere and accept, even encourage a bit of hacking/defacing in order
to get more out of what we already have, before building still more.
The upgrade of that Mac, in my book is a great example of that. Now, a
Nutting Computer Space is a horse of a different color. I won't go into
a bunch of reasons here, but I'm sure most on this list would agree that
the first ever coin-operated video game should not be converted to
Pac-Man or anything else.
--
mor_at_crl.com
http://www.crl.com/~mor/
Received on Wed Apr 08 1998 - 20:32:49 BST