4 ms·

The rose tinted lens of vintage computing strikes again. I too fell for this numerous times. In fact I actually went back to an Acorn RiscPC 600 for a bit once

by qz2 6y ago

The rose tinted lens of vintage computing strikes again. I too fell for this numerous times. In fact I actually went back to an Acorn RiscPC 600 for a bit once instead of a modern windows machine. It was what I considered to peak productivity for me. Built in assembler and programming language, decent quality desktop applications and no distractions. After about 5-6 days it was back on eBay because quite frankly I realised what a pain in the ass it really was. 99% of the stuff I was actually doing was collaboration and it's really difficult doing that on vintage computing platforms. On top of that the hardware is almost always like a hand grenade with the pin out. It's going to die, but you just don't know when. I cite this as an example for the comedy timing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU55-7dWMi0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU55-7dWMi0 Now emulation I can get behind because when you are completely fed up of the idea you had it's easier to dispose of it than getting rid of it on ebay :)

zokier 6y ago
Can you really say its rose tinted lens if the author actually did use the system and writes from current-day experience?
- LeoPanthera 6y ago
  Yes. It may be fine for the author, but the article promotes this as possible for everyone, or at least many other people.
  - zokier 6y ago
    > makes it a great choice for some classic Macintosh gaming and nostalgia tripping. > the machine will always be hobbled by its technical limitations. > I would never go as far to say that the Quadra 700 should have a place on your desk
goatinaboat 6y ago
99% of the stuff I was actually doing was collaboration and it's really difficult doing that on vintage computing platforms Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Are we talking Zoom or IRC here? If you need to do the sort of work where you just need to concentrate with no distractions, a "vintage" platform is a superior choice. A few prominent authors swear by their obsolete word processors for example. Many people (myself included) find it hard to focus and resist procrastination on any modern Internet-connected system. But I can get my head down in First Word Plus on my Atari ST (or Word 5.1 on a classic Mac) and upload the file later for formatting in Word and sharing by whatever means.
- ben_w 6y ago
  > Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Are we talking Zoom or IRC here? Much as I have fond memories of IRC, collaboration requires the other people to use the same tools as you, and you don’t always get to choose what that is.
  - goatinaboat 6y ago
    collaboration requires the other people to use the same tools as you, and you don’t always get to choose what that is. Indeed - my point being that whether a vintage platform is viable or even superior for your workflow is very situation-dependent, it's not "all or nothing" nor "one size fits all". Hell I am reading HN now when there is something I could be working on. I should go into the other room and boot up the ST.
  - qz2 6y ago
    Exactly that
  - forest_dweller 6y ago
    Doesn't slack allow you to email a channel?
ReactiveJelly 6y ago
> Now emulation I can get behind Makes sense. Other than perhaps latency, if software was truly better in previous decades, you can just run old software on new hardware [1] and get the best of both worlds. Given infinite time, you could probably find a way to boot directly into some kind of hypervisor that runs RiscOS or whatever full-screen. While also running LVM underneath it for online backups. Oops, a new software feature. It's related to my pet peeve about Gemini: You can just choose to do all the stuff Gemini does with your own safe subset of HTTPS. If you have the political power and dev hours to maintain Gemini, you can also just maintain HTTP/1.1 with TLS. Running Acorn hardware won't fix software bloat created by anyone but yourself, and running Gemini won't fix HTTP bloat created by anyone but yourself. Might as well run good software on good hardware, instead of running bad protocols or bad hardware out of spite. [1] I'm on the young end of millennials, so my nostalgia is for Windows XP. But there's a valley for retro nostalgia - It's okay to use modern Linux, because you need security patches. It's okay to use Windows 10 because your employer forces it. It's okay to run an Amiga or RiscOS ironically, because it's cool and funny. But Windows XP? No! Evil security hazard! Deprecation means the software became bad overnight! Why won't you upgrade??
- zokier 6y ago
  > and running Gemini won't fix HTTP bloat created by anyone but yourself No, but it does help building a community of like-minded people. And that is really the core idea of gemini, isolationism is sort of a feature there. I see gemini more like a flag under which people can rally under, the technical aspects are incidental. (note: I don't use/run gemini so I might be mis-representing them here)
- smartscience 6y ago
  Windows operating systems may themselves represent the 'pivot points' that wenc talks about. Every so often, a version of Windows seems to come along that gives you a genuine improvement over what came before - in my view Windows 98 SE, Windows XP and Windows 7 for example, which may represent the nostalgia valleys. Other intermediate versions seem to at best introduce new problems to replace the old ones. Of course, it would be great to have the Risc OS experience while doing modern computing tasks, so I'm pleased to hear that the lessons it brought to the world have not been forgotten.
yowlingcat 6y ago
> Now emulation I can get behind because when you are completely fed up of the idea you had it's easier to dispose of it than getting rid of it on ebay :) Attaboy. I went the other way and realized that I wanted to buy some very modestly priced emulator-on-a-SoC for an old gaming console near and dear to my heart. That gave me the best of both worlds -- form factor and tactility of the real console with cost, speed, battery life of a present day android device. I must say, for a $40 Android device, I use it a lot more than I thought I would.
- CharlesW 6y ago
  > …I use it a lot more than I thought I would. I can't help but be curious: What are you talking about?
  - zokier 6y ago
    Doesn't the new Raspberry Pi 400 fit this role pretty perfectly?
slavapestov 6y ago
I don’t think you can reasonably expect to get useful work done on a vintage computer, although I occasionally use my 512k Mac for writing markdown. Mostly old computers are fun to repair and tinker with, and play old games.
wenc 6y ago
I owned a Macintosh Quadra 650 in 2001 -- bought it for C$60 from an outgoing senior -- and it was already long in the tooth when I had it (the original Quadra 650 was released in 1993). It ran System 7.1. It was a beautiful machine but I couldn't get any real work done on it -- the browser (IE for Mac) was too slow, and ClarisWorks was too simple. I believe there are pivot points in computer technology. A machine just after a pivot will last a long time, while a machine just one year earlier will age badly. My main desktop was a Dell Inspiron 530 Core 2 Duo from 2005-2020. The Core 2 Duo was a long lasting chip, and I could watch YouTube, browse the web on the latest Firefox, etc. with no problems at all the way up to the start of the pandemic this year (I recently upgraded to a 2014 Dell i7, which I'll likely keep for another 10 years). If I had a Core Solo, I'd likely have dumped it. I eventually sold the Quadra (and the Mac II, Mac SE, the Sun SPARCstation 1 pizzabox, and all the other vintage machines I had in my college apartment). They were fun to own for a while, but ultimately impractical to keep around.
- zokier 6y ago
  > If I had a Core Solo, I'd likely have dumped it. I do note that there was never a Core Solo desktop CPU. There were handful of single-core Conroe Celerons released, but all main "Core" series parts were at least dual-core (i.e. Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad)
  - wenc 6y ago
    Thanks. I remember that the Core Solo was used on some Apple machines, including one of the first Intel Mac Minis (a pseudo-desktop machine?). https://lowendmac.com/2006/mac-mini-core-solo/ https://lowendmac.com/2006/mac-mini-core-solo/
    - sjwright 6y ago
      Pseudo is accurate. Mac minis have always been made with bits from the MacBook parts bin.
    - qz2 6y ago
      Correct. I had one. It sucked. But less than my XP machine. I have the spiritual successor, the M1 mini now.
Volt 6y ago
And yet you should wonder if the fact that we all think regularly of going back might suggest something.

by qz2 6y ago

zokier 6y ago

Can you really say its rose tinted lens if the author actually did use the system and writes from current-day experience?

LeoPanthera 6y ago
Yes. It may be fine for the author, but the article promotes this as possible for everyone, or at least many other people.
- zokier 6y ago
  > makes it a great choice for some classic Macintosh gaming and nostalgia tripping. > the machine will always be hobbled by its technical limitations. > I would never go as far to say that the Quadra 700 should have a place on your desk

goatinaboat 6y ago

99% of the stuff I was actually doing was collaboration and it's really difficult doing that on vintage computing platforms Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Are we talking Zoom or IRC here? If you need to do the sort of work where you just need to concentrate with no distractions, a "vintage" platform is a superior choice. A few prominent authors swear by their obsolete word processors for example. Many people (myself included) find it hard to focus and resist procrastination on any modern Internet-connected system. But I can get my head down in First Word Plus on my Atari ST (or Word 5.1 on a classic Mac) and upload the file later for formatting in Word and sharing by whatever means.

ben_w 6y ago
> Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Are we talking Zoom or IRC here? Much as I have fond memories of IRC, collaboration requires the other people to use the same tools as you, and you don’t always get to choose what that is.
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  collaboration requires the other people to use the same tools as you, and you don’t always get to choose what that is. Indeed - my point being that whether a vintage platform is viable or even superior for your workflow is very situation-dependent, it's not "all or nothing" nor "one size fits all". Hell I am reading HN now when there is something I could be working on. I should go into the other room and boot up the ST.
- qz2 6y ago
  Exactly that
- forest_dweller 6y ago
  Doesn't slack allow you to email a channel?

ReactiveJelly 6y ago

> Now emulation I can get behind Makes sense. Other than perhaps latency, if software was truly better in previous decades, you can just run old software on new hardware [1] and get the best of both worlds. Given infinite time, you could probably find a way to boot directly into some kind of hypervisor that runs RiscOS or whatever full-screen. While also running LVM underneath it for online backups. Oops, a new software feature. It's related to my pet peeve about Gemini: You can just choose to do all the stuff Gemini does with your own safe subset of HTTPS. If you have the political power and dev hours to maintain Gemini, you can also just maintain HTTP/1.1 with TLS. Running Acorn hardware won't fix software bloat created by anyone but yourself, and running Gemini won't fix HTTP bloat created by anyone but yourself. Might as well run good software on good hardware, instead of running bad protocols or bad hardware out of spite. [1] I'm on the young end of millennials, so my nostalgia is for Windows XP. But there's a valley for retro nostalgia - It's okay to use modern Linux, because you need security patches. It's okay to use Windows 10 because your employer forces it. It's okay to run an Amiga or RiscOS ironically, because it's cool and funny. But Windows XP? No! Evil security hazard! Deprecation means the software became bad overnight! Why won't you upgrade??

zokier 6y ago
> and running Gemini won't fix HTTP bloat created by anyone but yourself No, but it does help building a community of like-minded people. And that is really the core idea of gemini, isolationism is sort of a feature there. I see gemini more like a flag under which people can rally under, the technical aspects are incidental. (note: I don't use/run gemini so I might be mis-representing them here)
smartscience 6y ago
Windows operating systems may themselves represent the 'pivot points' that wenc talks about. Every so often, a version of Windows seems to come along that gives you a genuine improvement over what came before - in my view Windows 98 SE, Windows XP and Windows 7 for example, which may represent the nostalgia valleys. Other intermediate versions seem to at best introduce new problems to replace the old ones. Of course, it would be great to have the Risc OS experience while doing modern computing tasks, so I'm pleased to hear that the lessons it brought to the world have not been forgotten.

yowlingcat 6y ago

> Now emulation I can get behind because when you are completely fed up of the idea you had it's easier to dispose of it than getting rid of it on ebay :) Attaboy. I went the other way and realized that I wanted to buy some very modestly priced emulator-on-a-SoC for an old gaming console near and dear to my heart. That gave me the best of both worlds -- form factor and tactility of the real console with cost, speed, battery life of a present day android device. I must say, for a $40 Android device, I use it a lot more than I thought I would.

CharlesW 6y ago
> …I use it a lot more than I thought I would. I can't help but be curious: What are you talking about?
- zokier 6y ago
  Doesn't the new Raspberry Pi 400 fit this role pretty perfectly?

slavapestov 6y ago

I don’t think you can reasonably expect to get useful work done on a vintage computer, although I occasionally use my 512k Mac for writing markdown. Mostly old computers are fun to repair and tinker with, and play old games.

wenc 6y ago

I owned a Macintosh Quadra 650 in 2001 -- bought it for C$60 from an outgoing senior -- and it was already long in the tooth when I had it (the original Quadra 650 was released in 1993). It ran System 7.1. It was a beautiful machine but I couldn't get any real work done on it -- the browser (IE for Mac) was too slow, and ClarisWorks was too simple. I believe there are pivot points in computer technology. A machine just after a pivot will last a long time, while a machine just one year earlier will age badly. My main desktop was a Dell Inspiron 530 Core 2 Duo from 2005-2020. The Core 2 Duo was a long lasting chip, and I could watch YouTube, browse the web on the latest Firefox, etc. with no problems at all the way up to the start of the pandemic this year (I recently upgraded to a 2014 Dell i7, which I'll likely keep for another 10 years). If I had a Core Solo, I'd likely have dumped it. I eventually sold the Quadra (and the Mac II, Mac SE, the Sun SPARCstation 1 pizzabox, and all the other vintage machines I had in my college apartment). They were fun to own for a while, but ultimately impractical to keep around.

zokier 6y ago
> If I had a Core Solo, I'd likely have dumped it. I do note that there was never a Core Solo desktop CPU. There were handful of single-core Conroe Celerons released, but all main "Core" series parts were at least dual-core (i.e. Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad)
- wenc 6y ago
  Thanks. I remember that the Core Solo was used on some Apple machines, including one of the first Intel Mac Minis (a pseudo-desktop machine?). https://lowendmac.com/2006/mac-mini-core-solo/ https://lowendmac.com/2006/mac-mini-core-solo/
  - sjwright 6y ago
    Pseudo is accurate. Mac minis have always been made with bits from the MacBook parts bin.
  - qz2 6y ago
    Correct. I had one. It sucked. But less than my XP machine. I have the spiritual successor, the M1 mini now.

Volt 6y ago

And yet you should wonder if the fact that we all think regularly of going back might suggest something.