4 ms·

It's easy to attribute the interest in retrocomputing to nostalgia, and it's certainly a part of the appeal, but I believe that there's something else much more

by CrLf 6y ago

It's easy to attribute the interest in retrocomputing to nostalgia, and it's certainly a part of the appeal, but I believe that there's something else much more important for many of us(1): an escape from the overwhelming complexity and neverending change in modern tech. With an old computer, you can invest your time fixing it, learning about it, and generally tinkering with it, while being sure it won't become obsolete over night rendering all your efforts null. It ALREADY is obsolete and you already set goals that are completely independent of that status. I think it is something that's part of the appeal of anything historical: the immutability of the past. Every discovery you make can only be made obsolete by your own incomplete understanding of the subject, not by the subject itself becoming irrelevant under your feet. (1) I don't personally own any item that could be considered retrocomputing, but I enjoy learning about it (I'm an avid consumer of RMC and 8bitguy videos, or Xboxahoy for the retrogaming bits, for example) for the history, mostly. I'd like to own a few old machines though, but I don't have the time to give them the love they'd deserve.

52-6F-62 6y ago
Kind of like classic cars and guitars, eh?
TrueDuality 6y ago
I definitely think there is something to what your saying. For me personally, I've been slowly progressing lower in the software stack, both in terms of language (down to assembly) and in the software I'm exploring (operating systems and firmware) partially out of curiosity but I hit a pretty big wall when I got to modern operating systems. There is just so much in-scope to learn all at once that I was overwhelmed and not making a huge amount of progress. What ended up allowing me to start getting past that wall was researching old operating systems and old hardware. I found and modified some variants of the older hardware implemented either as software or in the more fun cases as an all-in-one FPGA design. Some of the tricks that those operating systems performed, and the way applications were designed to run are really creative. There are concepts in some of those earlier operating systems which are truly novel and if they had caught on we'd likely have a very different concept of what an operating system is. Some of those might become relevant again if our computing models evolve to a different paradigm (I'm especially looking at distributed compute and process scheduling, kind of like Erlang but for the entire operating system). Being able to see why we have certain components in modern operating systems and how the evolution of hardware and requirements has led to what our operating systems today do has been a really fun adventure. There is still so much I don't understand but what was once a giant inscrutable black box has sort of become a collection of smaller pieces that I can toy with individually.
wtetzner 6y ago
I've been looking into Game Boy Advance development as a way to build an indie game. There are several reasons I chose it: * It's not extremely limited like an NES, e.g. I can imagine some of my game ideas working well on it. * The limitations it does have restrict what I can do, helping to prevent me from scope-creeping myself out of ever releasing something. * It's a well-known platform, with several high-quality emulators. This means that no matter how much modern hardware changes over time, it should remain playable due to the fact that emulators will be kept up to date on newer hardware. * To your point about it not becoming obsolete in the future, it's a fixed piece of hardware. I can learn the ins and outs of that hardware, and my knowledge/tools etc. will still be useful if I want to make another game on the same platform.
agumonkey 6y ago
My interests in retro: - 20% nostalgia - 30% intellectual curiosity (I know a bit about the 90s, not the 70s 80s ways, I was utterly surprised by 40s analog computers, and even a slide ruler is amazing to me) - 30% old age taste for simple yet useful (I loathe the cost of aesthetics and the few benefits of todays most tech stack) - 10% margin error

by CrLf 6y ago

52-6F-62 6y ago

Kind of like classic cars and guitars, eh?

TrueDuality 6y ago

I definitely think there is something to what your saying. For me personally, I've been slowly progressing lower in the software stack, both in terms of language (down to assembly) and in the software I'm exploring (operating systems and firmware) partially out of curiosity but I hit a pretty big wall when I got to modern operating systems. There is just so much in-scope to learn all at once that I was overwhelmed and not making a huge amount of progress. What ended up allowing me to start getting past that wall was researching old operating systems and old hardware. I found and modified some variants of the older hardware implemented either as software or in the more fun cases as an all-in-one FPGA design. Some of the tricks that those operating systems performed, and the way applications were designed to run are really creative. There are concepts in some of those earlier operating systems which are truly novel and if they had caught on we'd likely have a very different concept of what an operating system is. Some of those might become relevant again if our computing models evolve to a different paradigm (I'm especially looking at distributed compute and process scheduling, kind of like Erlang but for the entire operating system). Being able to see why we have certain components in modern operating systems and how the evolution of hardware and requirements has led to what our operating systems today do has been a really fun adventure. There is still so much I don't understand but what was once a giant inscrutable black box has sort of become a collection of smaller pieces that I can toy with individually.

wtetzner 6y ago

I've been looking into Game Boy Advance development as a way to build an indie game. There are several reasons I chose it: * It's not extremely limited like an NES, e.g. I can imagine some of my game ideas working well on it. * The limitations it does have restrict what I can do, helping to prevent me from scope-creeping myself out of ever releasing something. * It's a well-known platform, with several high-quality emulators. This means that no matter how much modern hardware changes over time, it should remain playable due to the fact that emulators will be kept up to date on newer hardware. * To your point about it not becoming obsolete in the future, it's a fixed piece of hardware. I can learn the ins and outs of that hardware, and my knowledge/tools etc. will still be useful if I want to make another game on the same platform.

agumonkey 6y ago

My interests in retro: - 20% nostalgia - 30% intellectual curiosity (I know a bit about the 90s, not the 70s 80s ways, I was utterly surprised by 40s analog computers, and even a slide ruler is amazing to me) - 30% old age taste for simple yet useful (I loathe the cost of aesthetics and the few benefits of todays most tech stack) - 10% margin error