6 ms·

What we can learn from vintage computing

86 points by ibobev 2y ago

khaledh 2y ago
Should have (2022) in the title.
- andrewstuart 2y ago
  Doesn't matter to vintage computing.
  - layer8 2y ago
    It helps to identify if you’ve read it before.
tlhunter 2y ago
I've got a G3 iMac running macOS 9.2 that I recently restored sitting on my desk. Of course it's a lot of fun to play the old games but even browsing through applications, sifting through menus, and playing with the old UI patterns is just so refreshing. It's technically slow but latency feels so much better than modern machines. Sure, the OS is technically inferior, and an infinite loop can freeze the entire machine, and my goodness that filesystem with all the goofy metadata is infuriating. There are all sorts of hidden resource metadata on each file that makes even program to file association bonkers. But otherwise there's a lot I like about it and a lot it gets right compared to modern operating systems. Older operating systems are just such a thin layer on top of the machine, compared to the mountains of abstractions and complexities of modern operating systems.
- rgreekguy 2y ago
  If you haven't, look around. Macintosh (was still called I believe?) 9 has (had?) a crazy following still. There was a fork of some old Firefox being updated and maintained up until 2-3 years ago. macos9lives.com is a site I have handy.
- BaculumMeumEst 2y ago
  So jealous! God I loved that machine. Used them a lot in libraries and always wanted to have my own.
- TacticalCoder 2y ago
  > ... and my goodness that filesystem with all the goofy metadata is infuriating. There are all sorts of hidden resource metadata on each file that makes even program to file association bonkers I was doing typesetting, using QuarkXPress (before InDesign ruled the day) on Mac G3 running MacOS 9. Good memories but, geez, what a turd that filesystem was. Basically the only way to exchange files and stay sane was to stay in MacOS land. Having a G3 with a built-in ZIP drive did help though.
- cesaref 2y ago
  It's easy to pick up a bit of an old computer habit. I'm in the process of putting a machine I used to own back together, a Mac IIcx with Trinitron monitor, running Emagic Logic (a midi sequencer) as this was a hugely influential machine when I was getting into audio. In the process of finding the right bits for this, i've ended up with an SE/30, a Mac LC and a Mac II, basically in order to get hold of other bits, and the price was good. They are now all running, and i've got no real use for any of them, but it's great to convert broken doorstops into fully functional doorstops :)
  - deltarholamda 2y ago
    I used an SE/30 well past its sell-by date as a dedicated writing/programming appliance using an old version of BBEdit, and then later as a local mail server using NetBSD. Of the two, the writing/programming appliance turned out to be more useful. With a PDS Ethernet card and a cheap wifi AP, it's even wireless, sort of. The SE/30 was truly an insanely great machine. Topped out at 128MB of RAM! And I really enjoy the toaster Mac format.
  - NegativeLatency 2y ago
    A/UX lan?
    - cesaref 2y ago
      Yeah, that's definitely an option. I've got an ethernet board for the SE/30, and also for the IIcx, and enough RAM to keep A/UX happy.
- robinsonb5 2y ago
  Arguably MacOS 9.2 was peak UI - it's visually attractive, maintains clarity throughout and doesn't waste screen real estate. Playing with it today is quite the antidote to the flat, boring monochromatic UIs that dominate now.
  - geerlingguy 2y ago
    And it was fast. It's insane there are still moments where opening a window, or changing tabs, takes more than 1s on modern hardware. Usually it's apps like Photoshop that have web UIs instead of native windows...
joshu 2y ago
i have been slowly designing a fantasy retro terminal/computer idea. imagine something uncomplicated enough that kids could learn the entire architecture on, without the diatractability for the web. and maybe a fantasy network that would be more like what could have happened if we extended fidonet out instead of getting IP (overlayed on the modern internet of course)
- jeff_vader 2y ago
  Somewhat related: https://x.com/id_aa_carmack/status/569658695832829952 https://x.com/id_aa_carmack/status/569658695832829952 > Teaching my kids programming on an Apple //c is like kung fu training in the primitive wilderness.
Joper 2y ago
[flagged]
CursedSilicon 2y ago
I used to joke that retro computing was my answer to being stuck as a support engineer at AWS working on Kubernetes all day (I was bait-and-switched on what was originally billed as a Linux support job and dropped into the "Containers" team instead. I had no prior experience with containers and would prefer to never work with them again!) I built the "Worlds Fastest Windows 98 PC" [1] kicking off a small YouTube channel. And have demoed it live at the local computer festival here in Seattle [2]. Thanks to Re-PC and others in Seattle I've slowly accumulated dozens [3] of old machines of all stripes that absolutely fascinate and delight me with their quirks. Despite being thrown overboard from AWS over a year ago now, I still very much enjoy retro computing. I would love to be able to turn my hobby into supporting "legacy machines" into a "real" Sysadmin career, but it seems like YouTube is a more likely bet on that front these days. The biggest thing I've learned from retro computing is an appreciation for viewing things in their historical contexts. Something that is surprisingly difficult to teach "younger people" or programmers who've only ever really worked at FAANG's. Younger people today bang the drum about rewriting the world in Rust. Rust is great, and I'm not here to argue for or against it. But when they bemoan using C they seem to misunderstand exactly how big a leap forward C was from pure assembly programming. Just having portable code in the era of everybody having their own bespoke UNIX system (with their own processor architecture to match, of course!) was an absolute game changer. C is entrenched because it was an evolutionary leap in a landscape that was shifting by the day. Retro computing has taught me that people weren't nearly as "clueless" or "incompetent" as they're derided for these days. These were smart people making the best decisions they could at the time with what they had available. People in the 1980's didn't "want" to cause Y2K. They simply never thought their software would be in use 20 years later. How could they? Technology was moving at such blinding speed. Just 20 years before them they were still using punch cards and printout teletype machines on mainframes as big as houses! [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YETxI4rA_gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YETxI4rA_gs [2] https://sdf.org/icf https://sdf.org/icf [3] https://wiki.cursedsilicon.net/ https://wiki.cursedsilicon.net/
- dailykoder 2y ago
  >Technology was moving at such blinding speed. And still is. Only 14 years ago basically no one had a smartphone. Now you are "forced" to use it for some real life applications. Also LLMs, etc. There is just so much technology atm, that it doesn't feel like such a big leap, but it's moving incredibly fast. Apprently just the hardware leaps got smaller
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
swayvil 2y ago
[flagged]
alanjay 2y ago
If you look at how these machines were programmed, rather than used, you'll learn a lot
- jarbus 2y ago
  Any resources you’d recommend?
  - TillE 2y ago
    Ben Eater's 8-bit projects are the easiest place to start if you don't already deeply understand how such computers work. He starts with the hardware and eventually builds up to writing non-trival assembly for it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnzuMJLZRdU&list=PLowKtXNTBypFbtuVMUVXNR0z1mu7dp7eH https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnzuMJLZRdU&list=PLowKtXNTBy...
robinsonb5 2y ago
I think the most important lesson to be learned from vintage computing is to make much more wise use of resources. Over the last decade I've spent a lot of time tinkering with various branches of the Minimig FPGA core, which aims to be an Amiga on a programmable chip. There's a certain minimalist delight in not only running and using the classic OS and the super-lightweight applications of the day, but also having to extend the same principles of frugality and elegance to other parts of the design, to make it fit within the confines of a relatively small FPGA and a single SDRAM chip.
jmclnx 2y ago
Retro computing to me has to benefits: 1. As mentioned by robinsonb5 -- "wise use of resources". I believe developers should test their changes on old hardware to ensure it will be fast. 2. How much I really miss laptop monitor sizes 4:3, 16:10 is a decent 2nd choice. I hate 16:9, which is the most common. Updated per kazinator post. I got 16:9 and 16:10 mixed up
- peepee1982 2y ago
  What's your beef with 16:10? I prefer it over 16:9 unless I want to watch 16:9 video most of the time.
  - kazinator 2y ago
    16:10 allows for 16:9 video with captions/subtitles and basic video controls off the frame.
    - peepee1982 2y ago
      I was thinking of watching TV shows, where I don't want those things. But you're right, when watching e.g. educational videos, having more room for controls and subs is nice.
  - jmclnx 2y ago
    I got them mixed up. I ment I like 16:10.
    - peepee1982 2y ago
      Ah, ok.
- oarsinsync 2y ago
  > 16:10, which is the most common. I'm so glad we're back at this world. I had a laptop in 2011 that developed a fault on it's 16:10 (1920x1200) screen, Dell ran out of replacement parts and laptops had standardised on 16:9 screens by this point, so they ended up replacing the entire laptop with one with a 16:9 (1920x1080) screen. I wasn't thrilled at the loss of pixels.
dncornholio 2y ago
My local snackbar still has this DOS application where they enter all orders and print receipts etc. It looked so refreshing to see that interface again. The DOS font, the blue background, no border radiuses or drop shadows, super snappy and you don't even need a mouse!!
- mystified5016 2y ago
  Lots of older companies still do. When I worked for Sherwin Williams a couple years ago, every aspect of the business was run by some DOS style software on some custom nix OS. Once you spent a little time to memorize the hotkeys, you can do things incredibly* fast. No action is ever more than three or four keystrokes away. Menus and actions appear in ordered lists and never change. If an item is removed, its menu entry is simply blank until something else gets added five years later. Everything is always exactly where it's been since 1980. People want to talk about clean and minimal interfaces, but that art peaked in the 90s. There is not any traditional GUI application anywhere on the market that can compete with the sheer speed and productivity of a DOS application that's been progressively optimized over half a century.
helpfulContrib 2y ago
[dead]

86 points by ibobev 2y ago

khaledh 2y ago

Should have (2022) in the title.

andrewstuart 2y ago
Doesn't matter to vintage computing.
- layer8 2y ago
  It helps to identify if you’ve read it before.

tlhunter 2y ago

I've got a G3 iMac running macOS 9.2 that I recently restored sitting on my desk. Of course it's a lot of fun to play the old games but even browsing through applications, sifting through menus, and playing with the old UI patterns is just so refreshing. It's technically slow but latency feels so much better than modern machines. Sure, the OS is technically inferior, and an infinite loop can freeze the entire machine, and my goodness that filesystem with all the goofy metadata is infuriating. There are all sorts of hidden resource metadata on each file that makes even program to file association bonkers. But otherwise there's a lot I like about it and a lot it gets right compared to modern operating systems. Older operating systems are just such a thin layer on top of the machine, compared to the mountains of abstractions and complexities of modern operating systems.

rgreekguy 2y ago
If you haven't, look around. Macintosh (was still called I believe?) 9 has (had?) a crazy following still. There was a fork of some old Firefox being updated and maintained up until 2-3 years ago. macos9lives.com is a site I have handy.
BaculumMeumEst 2y ago
So jealous! God I loved that machine. Used them a lot in libraries and always wanted to have my own.
TacticalCoder 2y ago
> ... and my goodness that filesystem with all the goofy metadata is infuriating. There are all sorts of hidden resource metadata on each file that makes even program to file association bonkers I was doing typesetting, using QuarkXPress (before InDesign ruled the day) on Mac G3 running MacOS 9. Good memories but, geez, what a turd that filesystem was. Basically the only way to exchange files and stay sane was to stay in MacOS land. Having a G3 with a built-in ZIP drive did help though.
cesaref 2y ago
It's easy to pick up a bit of an old computer habit. I'm in the process of putting a machine I used to own back together, a Mac IIcx with Trinitron monitor, running Emagic Logic (a midi sequencer) as this was a hugely influential machine when I was getting into audio. In the process of finding the right bits for this, i've ended up with an SE/30, a Mac LC and a Mac II, basically in order to get hold of other bits, and the price was good. They are now all running, and i've got no real use for any of them, but it's great to convert broken doorstops into fully functional doorstops :)
- deltarholamda 2y ago
  I used an SE/30 well past its sell-by date as a dedicated writing/programming appliance using an old version of BBEdit, and then later as a local mail server using NetBSD. Of the two, the writing/programming appliance turned out to be more useful. With a PDS Ethernet card and a cheap wifi AP, it's even wireless, sort of. The SE/30 was truly an insanely great machine. Topped out at 128MB of RAM! And I really enjoy the toaster Mac format.
- NegativeLatency 2y ago
  A/UX lan?
  - cesaref 2y ago
    Yeah, that's definitely an option. I've got an ethernet board for the SE/30, and also for the IIcx, and enough RAM to keep A/UX happy.
robinsonb5 2y ago
Arguably MacOS 9.2 was peak UI - it's visually attractive, maintains clarity throughout and doesn't waste screen real estate. Playing with it today is quite the antidote to the flat, boring monochromatic UIs that dominate now.
- geerlingguy 2y ago
  And it was fast. It's insane there are still moments where opening a window, or changing tabs, takes more than 1s on modern hardware. Usually it's apps like Photoshop that have web UIs instead of native windows...

joshu 2y ago

i have been slowly designing a fantasy retro terminal/computer idea. imagine something uncomplicated enough that kids could learn the entire architecture on, without the diatractability for the web. and maybe a fantasy network that would be more like what could have happened if we extended fidonet out instead of getting IP (overlayed on the modern internet of course)

jeff_vader 2y ago
Somewhat related: https://x.com/id_aa_carmack/status/569658695832829952 https://x.com/id_aa_carmack/status/569658695832829952 > Teaching my kids programming on an Apple //c is like kung fu training in the primitive wilderness.

Joper 2y ago

[flagged]

CursedSilicon 2y ago

I used to joke that retro computing was my answer to being stuck as a support engineer at AWS working on Kubernetes all day (I was bait-and-switched on what was originally billed as a Linux support job and dropped into the "Containers" team instead. I had no prior experience with containers and would prefer to never work with them again!) I built the "Worlds Fastest Windows 98 PC" [1] kicking off a small YouTube channel. And have demoed it live at the local computer festival here in Seattle [2]. Thanks to Re-PC and others in Seattle I've slowly accumulated dozens [3] of old machines of all stripes that absolutely fascinate and delight me with their quirks. Despite being thrown overboard from AWS over a year ago now, I still very much enjoy retro computing. I would love to be able to turn my hobby into supporting "legacy machines" into a "real" Sysadmin career, but it seems like YouTube is a more likely bet on that front these days. The biggest thing I've learned from retro computing is an appreciation for viewing things in their historical contexts. Something that is surprisingly difficult to teach "younger people" or programmers who've only ever really worked at FAANG's. Younger people today bang the drum about rewriting the world in Rust. Rust is great, and I'm not here to argue for or against it. But when they bemoan using C they seem to misunderstand exactly how big a leap forward C was from pure assembly programming. Just having portable code in the era of everybody having their own bespoke UNIX system (with their own processor architecture to match, of course!) was an absolute game changer. C is entrenched because it was an evolutionary leap in a landscape that was shifting by the day. Retro computing has taught me that people weren't nearly as "clueless" or "incompetent" as they're derided for these days. These were smart people making the best decisions they could at the time with what they had available. People in the 1980's didn't "want" to cause Y2K. They simply never thought their software would be in use 20 years later. How could they? Technology was moving at such blinding speed. Just 20 years before them they were still using punch cards and printout teletype machines on mainframes as big as houses! [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YETxI4rA_gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YETxI4rA_gs [2] https://sdf.org/icf https://sdf.org/icf [3] https://wiki.cursedsilicon.net/ https://wiki.cursedsilicon.net/

dailykoder 2y ago
>Technology was moving at such blinding speed. And still is. Only 14 years ago basically no one had a smartphone. Now you are "forced" to use it for some real life applications. Also LLMs, etc. There is just so much technology atm, that it doesn't feel like such a big leap, but it's moving incredibly fast. Apprently just the hardware leaps got smaller

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

swayvil 2y ago

[flagged]

alanjay 2y ago

If you look at how these machines were programmed, rather than used, you'll learn a lot

jarbus 2y ago
Any resources you’d recommend?
- TillE 2y ago
  Ben Eater's 8-bit projects are the easiest place to start if you don't already deeply understand how such computers work. He starts with the hardware and eventually builds up to writing non-trival assembly for it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnzuMJLZRdU&list=PLowKtXNTBypFbtuVMUVXNR0z1mu7dp7eH https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnzuMJLZRdU&list=PLowKtXNTBy...

robinsonb5 2y ago

I think the most important lesson to be learned from vintage computing is to make much more wise use of resources. Over the last decade I've spent a lot of time tinkering with various branches of the Minimig FPGA core, which aims to be an Amiga on a programmable chip. There's a certain minimalist delight in not only running and using the classic OS and the super-lightweight applications of the day, but also having to extend the same principles of frugality and elegance to other parts of the design, to make it fit within the confines of a relatively small FPGA and a single SDRAM chip.

jmclnx 2y ago

Retro computing to me has to benefits: 1. As mentioned by robinsonb5 -- "wise use of resources". I believe developers should test their changes on old hardware to ensure it will be fast. 2. How much I really miss laptop monitor sizes 4:3, 16:10 is a decent 2nd choice. I hate 16:9, which is the most common. Updated per kazinator post. I got 16:9 and 16:10 mixed up

peepee1982 2y ago
What's your beef with 16:10? I prefer it over 16:9 unless I want to watch 16:9 video most of the time.
- kazinator 2y ago
  16:10 allows for 16:9 video with captions/subtitles and basic video controls off the frame.
  - peepee1982 2y ago
    I was thinking of watching TV shows, where I don't want those things. But you're right, when watching e.g. educational videos, having more room for controls and subs is nice.
- jmclnx 2y ago
  I got them mixed up. I ment I like 16:10.
  - peepee1982 2y ago
    Ah, ok.
oarsinsync 2y ago
> 16:10, which is the most common. I'm so glad we're back at this world. I had a laptop in 2011 that developed a fault on it's 16:10 (1920x1200) screen, Dell ran out of replacement parts and laptops had standardised on 16:9 screens by this point, so they ended up replacing the entire laptop with one with a 16:9 (1920x1080) screen. I wasn't thrilled at the loss of pixels.

dncornholio 2y ago

My local snackbar still has this DOS application where they enter all orders and print receipts etc. It looked so refreshing to see that interface again. The DOS font, the blue background, no border radiuses or drop shadows, super snappy and you don't even need a mouse!!

mystified5016 2y ago
Lots of older companies still do. When I worked for Sherwin Williams a couple years ago, every aspect of the business was run by some DOS style software on some custom nix OS. Once you spent a little time to memorize the hotkeys, you can do things incredibly* fast. No action is ever more than three or four keystrokes away. Menus and actions appear in ordered lists and never change. If an item is removed, its menu entry is simply blank until something else gets added five years later. Everything is always exactly where it's been since 1980. People want to talk about clean and minimal interfaces, but that art peaked in the 90s. There is not any traditional GUI application anywhere on the market that can compete with the sheer speed and productivity of a DOS application that's been progressively optimized over half a century.

helpfulContrib 2y ago

[dead]