YADA10YR (Yet Another Discussion About the 10 Year Rule)

From: Bob Shannon <bshannon_at_tiac.net>
Date: Thu Sep 4 18:16:00 2003

IMO, 'coolness' is the key factor, but it cannot be used as any form of
criteria for the list simply
because what I find cool, someone else will not.

So I tend to think about the 'collectability' of a given bit of
hardware. This is much easier to define
in a common way.

One key factor in 'collectability' is rarity. Most PC's (but not all)
are commodity products, produced
by the tens of thousands, even millions. to my eyes, such machines will
never have much value as a
collectable.

Its also true that commodity products generally are not good examples of
ground-breaking new
technology, so they also lack intrinsic value as collectables.

Now if you had the first PC with an Active Matrix color LCD (was not a
laptop BTW!), which was
also an EISA-bus AC powered 'portable', then I would say that PC is a
bit collectable, and on-topic.
But this is because it broke new technical ground and marked a turning
point in computing technology.
It was also not produced in any great numbers and was quickly obsoleted,
so its a rather rare machine.

A blanket cut-off date is simple snobbery, and ignores that computer
evolution does continue today.

I don't see much classic potential in a Geo Metro, no matter how old it
gets. Same for any clone PC
thrown together from off-the shelf parts, or even a brand-name 'me-too' PC.

I would not want to see the list turn into a MS-DOS or Windows support
group, that would be a
plug-pulling situation for my personally.
Received on Thu Sep 04 2003 - 18:16:00 BST