The definition of On Topic

From: Jay West <jwest_at_classiccmp.org>
Date: Sun Jan 30 15:21:28 2005

You wrote...
> Not sure if I understand the final part of your statement...
Darn, I thought I was crystal clear :)

> would you agree,
> or not, that within a few years (or possibly right now) we'd also have to
> include the earliest versions of Windows (and other early GUI shells) that
> were
> still just DOS underneath?
We don't really decide what becomes classic computing. Society as a whole
does. They have already spoken with regards to the machines we typically
discuss here, by virtue of them moving to a different (and current) school
of thought in those systems. They have yet to speak on various versions of
windows because they are still in common use.

My own view: (just examples to illustrate the point, not meant to be a
definitive list)
C64 w/GEOS - definitely on-topic
DOS - definitely on-topic
DOS with some other early GUI shell that is not the mainstream today -
definitely on-topic
DOS with Windows on top of it (Win 3.1) - grey area, I suspect not though as
it's certainly representitive of the current school of thought
Windows - not for a long, long, long, long time. Think decades.

I think that by posing the question you do, in the exact way that you did,
shows a desire for us to make some kind of determination. That's not our
place. We can't decide history in advance of it occuring :)

Jay
Received on Sun Jan 30 2005 - 15:21:28 GMT