WARNING: RANTING COMPUTER NUT...

From: Joe R. <rigdonj_at_cfl.rr.com>
Date: Tue Jun 15 20:49:48 2004

At 08:03 AM 6/15/04 -0400, Teo Zenios wrote:
>>
>> The neat thing about the old machines is that it takes for ever to set
>> them up and this is what's so intriguing about them. I remember a
>> posting (not in this forum), about a guy who got an old IBM 360
>> mainframe working. He said that once it was working there wasn't much
>> to do with it.
>>
>
>There are allot of things you can do with vintage computers of the last 20
>years besides just getting them to run. A computer is more then just the
>basic hardware and the OS. I like running older software on vintage machines
>because there is less bloat, earlier versions don't have the added
>complexity of functions new users wont need, and all the software came with
>large printed manuals instead of an empty box. It is also cheaper to mess
>around with an old version of Mathematica, AutoCAD, PageMaker, MathCAD then
>it is to buy a newer version. Some people like me prefer the old 2D single
>player type games from the 80's and 90's that you don't find today on any of
>the newer machines (and no emulators are not good enough). I like using the
>many ISA data acquisition cards I own that wont fit into new machines. There
>is all kinds of interesting hardware and software that you cant find for
>machines other then vintage PCs, Amigas, Macs, Ataris. If just getting an
>old rig to run is all there is for you, you are missing quite a bit of the
>hobby.


   Well Said! Too many members of this list simply collect old computers
and don't bother with the related docs, manuals or application programs. I
have an old original 64k IBM PC and it's been very intersting collecting
original software and peripherals for it. Things like DOS 1.0, CPM-86, uSCD
Pascal, Professional Fortran, PolyForth, IBM GPIB software, early versions
of MS Word and MultiPlan, EasyWriter (written by none other than Capt'n
Crunch!), etc etc. And that's just the software, it doesn't include all the
various Tech Refs and all the fasinating 3rd party cards and peripherals.
I don't like the current over-bloated version-of-the-day MicroSoft products
either but it doesn't mean that the early PCs are uninteresting and not
worth collecting.

    Joe
Received on Tue Jun 15 2004 - 20:49:48 BST