Vintageness

From: McFadden, Mike <mmcfadden_at_cmh.edu>
Date: Mon May 14 10:33:56 2001

My opinion on the value of old items is that they were created for a task,
they performed the task and then survived to the present. For example I am
thrilled when I can hold and read a rare book that was read by somebody 400
years ago. I'm seeing the same information that they saw, I'm reading the
same words. Some of the books aren't event that old, I have read first
edition science fiction books from the 1930's.
Seeing an old computer gives me the same thrill, the Smithsonian has
examples of computers on display that I can remember using 20-30 years ago.
Maybe it's nostalgia for my youth. I think the real reason is that there
was a great promise that computers offered to solve problems never before
solved. Now we are numbed by the rapid progress and "noise level". There
are games, media, and information that comes at us in an avalanche and we
filter out the value of most of it.

The Apollo era computers and hardware now seem so simple almost antique, yet
at the time they did the job and were examples of the level of
sophistication that could be achieved.

Mike
mmcfadden_at_cmh.edu
Received on Mon May 14 2001 - 10:33:56 BST