3 ms·

I have a weird nostalgia for all things 486 because the PC my father had while I was growing up was a 386, and the 486 was "one better", running all the games s

by titzer 4y ago

I have a weird nostalgia for all things 486 because the PC my father had while I was growing up was a 386, and the 486 was "one better", running all the games silky smooth...and EVEN WINDOWS! Other people seem to share this weird nostalgia because the prices of crappy, broken old laptops and desktops from this era are surprisingly high, and working ones are actually expensive!

knodi123 4y ago
> broken old laptops and desktops from this era are surprisingly high, and working ones are actually expensive! What do you think, could it be factories or corporations that have critical processes running on ancient software that requires very specific hardware to run, and which nobody wants to pay to rewrite for modern hardware? Young me would have said "don't be silly", but I've seen some crazy things, man.
- titzer 4y ago
  The draw of laptops is easy to understand. I have a cardboard box full of old motherboards and things, but without all the requisite drives and video cards, they are junk. I'm not going to buy a bulky 486 desktop for nostalgia. A laptop is a pretty compact, fully self-contained item; just needs an AC power adapter. Easy to have a box full of them. All of my old laptops still work, especially that 12" aluminum G4 Macbook.
tracker1 4y ago
I think part of it comes down to emulation being less than great for some use cases. I'm fine with emulation, but some want the real experience. The difference with CRT displays vs modern displays is particularly noticeable... I seem to recall a video running a Control, maxed out on a 22" Flat CRT at 1280x1024 that looked better than a 4k display sitting next to it, let alone the performance differences. I know I held on to my pro grade CRTs until I had to move them 3x one summer... man they were heavy. Had a permanent bow in my desk.
- formerly_proven 4y ago
  That was probably DigitalFoundry with a Sony FW900, one of the last high-end CRT monitors. Iirc it does 120 Hz at 1920x1200, which purely in terms of latency and lack of S&H blur remains unbeatable for flat-panel displays.
bombcar 4y ago
The total number of 486s sold is incredibly dwarfed by the the absolute huge numbers of Pentiums after Windows 95. It grew the market just astronomically.

by titzer 4y ago

knodi123 4y ago

> broken old laptops and desktops from this era are surprisingly high, and working ones are actually expensive! What do you think, could it be factories or corporations that have critical processes running on ancient software that requires very specific hardware to run, and which nobody wants to pay to rewrite for modern hardware? Young me would have said "don't be silly", but I've seen some crazy things, man.

titzer 4y ago
The draw of laptops is easy to understand. I have a cardboard box full of old motherboards and things, but without all the requisite drives and video cards, they are junk. I'm not going to buy a bulky 486 desktop for nostalgia. A laptop is a pretty compact, fully self-contained item; just needs an AC power adapter. Easy to have a box full of them. All of my old laptops still work, especially that 12" aluminum G4 Macbook.

tracker1 4y ago

I think part of it comes down to emulation being less than great for some use cases. I'm fine with emulation, but some want the real experience. The difference with CRT displays vs modern displays is particularly noticeable... I seem to recall a video running a Control, maxed out on a 22" Flat CRT at 1280x1024 that looked better than a 4k display sitting next to it, let alone the performance differences. I know I held on to my pro grade CRTs until I had to move them 3x one summer... man they were heavy. Had a permanent bow in my desk.

formerly_proven 4y ago
That was probably DigitalFoundry with a Sony FW900, one of the last high-end CRT monitors. Iirc it does 120 Hz at 1920x1200, which purely in terms of latency and lack of S&H blur remains unbeatable for flat-panel displays.

bombcar 4y ago

The total number of 486s sold is incredibly dwarfed by the the absolute huge numbers of Pentiums after Windows 95. It grew the market just astronomically.