> >It just fascinates me that there are so many of you who run these
> >beasts and I'd just like to know why.
> It's common for people to laugh at the old minis, but the thing is,
> back when they first came out everyone thought they were *wicked* cool.
> And what's changed? Unless you've gotten seriously behind on maintenance,
> they haven't gotten any worse just because the rest of the computing world
> has moved ahead (sort of). They're as great as they ever were.
And to give a real recent example, we may look at the Apple Newton.
A bit more than a year ago, the 2000 was mega hyper super top notch
technology, then Apple decided (or better the dammed Jobs) that there
is no place for a device like that. Within moments a lot of people
where refering to the Newton as a dead old outdated thig ... just,
where is the new, better device ? and even more, did all Newtons
suddenly stop working just because of the decision to stop production ?
I still love my Newt, and it is still the way most cool and powerfull
(handheld) device around ... and all I can hope is that the rest may
catch up within the next five years, so I can switch if my unit will
show first signs of death... Just signs are prety bad that there will
come anything close to the Newt within this timeframe.
And the same is true for a lot of other old stuff. There is still no
better Desktop system than the Xerox (remember the Copy/Move/Property
keys ?) and there's still no better way to play Wizardry than on an A][
(no emulator includes the tactile pleasure of a Disk ][ drive calibrating
and loading your characters :).
Ok, skip the A][ part, thats personal history, but the Xerox desktop
is still a real good example of a technological forerunner who has
never been catched up by all the later stuff - likewise I assume the
same for the Newt.
And one can find examples all over - shure, there are not a lot
(if we ignore the personal history stuff), but there a enough in
every class where the original thing is still superior.
A /370 still rules the landscape in every way, just since a small
unix can do the same numer of whatever computation score, they are
still like rats compared to a tiger ...
Anyway
Gruss
H.
--
Der Kopf ist auch nur ein Auswuchs wie der kleine Zeh.
H.Achternbusch
Received on Thu Dec 30 1999 - 14:25:53 GMT