Definition of Obsolete... (was: Re: gauging interest in VAX 6000-530

From: Eric Smith <eric_at_brouhaha.com>
Date: Tue Oct 26 12:56:52 1999

I wrote:
> Is there some emotional connotation to the word "obsolete" that I
> don't understand?

> ob-so-lete (Äb1sú-lTt2, Äb2sú-lTt1) adj.
> 1. Abbr. obs. No longer in use: an obsolete word. See Synonyms at old.
> 2. Outmoded in design, style, or construction: an obsolete locomotive.
>
> Hmmmm, my -11's and VAXen and more importantly those of a lot of companies
> don't fall into #1. As for #2 nope, they're still usable.

#2 didn't say anything about usable.

And if you interpret it correctly, definition #1 seems completely worthless.
By that standard, buggy whips are not obsolete, because there are still a few
people using them. Yet I think the majority of the population (and perhaps
even a few who are using them) would hold that buggy whips are in fact
obsolete.

Other things that are NOT obsolete based on definition 1:

    Model T automobiles
    steam locomotives
    telephones with magnetos
    muskets
    Ford Trimotor airplanes - (Actually, strike the "s". there's only
                               one still known to be flying.)
    the Difference Engine
    mechanical cash registers
    punched card tabluators
    tables of logarithms and trigonometric functions
    slide rules

I've seen all of these things in use in the last ten years, and as far
as I know they're still in use. But are you really going to tell me
that a reasonable person with a practical working definition of "obsolete"
would say that they aren't?

I still think people are bringing too much emotional baggage with the
word obsolete. If I tell you your PDP-11 is obsolete, I am not insulting
you or the computer. Personally, I'm proud to have a bunch of obsolete
computers. In many ways (but NOT including computational performance),
I consider some of the obsolete computers to be better than the current
crop of soon-to-be-obsolete computers.
Received on Tue Oct 26 1999 - 12:56:52 BST