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The key is that you used them. The retro community is for people who lusted after those machines, but we’re stuck with something much more affordable and much l

The key is that you used them. The retro community is for people who lusted after those machines, but we’re stuck with something much more affordable and much less powerful. And now they’re well into middle age and they have money.

deadbabe 1y ago
I don’t think it’s that simple. Yes for some people who used these machines once, they might just think of them as old machines, the same way an ancient Roman still alive today might not think much of mundane Roman tech. But getting into retro-computing as a hobby is more like being a historian or archaeologist. There is endless lore to discover, and restoring old hardware is an art. Some of these people were never old enough or even existed to lust after these machines. Someday, all the people who used these machines will be dead, completely dead, and the machines will be all that remains. Blessed are those who keep them running in their memory.
JKCalhoun 1y ago
Myself, I have passion for the KIM-1. Perhaps, as you suggest, because I saw it in a TAB book in the early 70's when I was a teenager, unable at that time to swing the $400 or so to get it. But I think my current passion has more to do with the simplicity of it, and being forced (well, more or less) to learn 6502 assembly. (Oh, and Christ an original KIM-1 is a good deal more than $400 now, ha ha. But there are nice reproductions you can build yourself.) What a breath of fresh air the thing is — having so little between its hex keypad and its six character display.
ehnto 1y ago
The same thing happens with cars. There's a somewhat predictable spike in used car prices for what become cult classics. Cars that are otherwise pretty mundane, and have since been well surpassed. It's the people now with full time employment, who couldn't afford them when they were 16. Now they can, and the cars in good condition are more scarce.
flomo 1y ago
You're right about the money part, but it always seemed more like a 30-year-old pursuit than middle-aged. But once I went through Vogons and had the impression that many of them lacked any taste. A lot of PCs (and Macs) were total shite back then. If you want to dink around, you can now get the best old stuff.
icehawk 1y ago
I don't think that's entirely it. A lot of the things I've been collecting in the hobby are just things that I had used a the time. I've got more weird variants of Mac SEs and Mac LCs which were things I had at home, or used at school, than the Quadras and Power Macs I dreamed of.
qoez 1y ago
For me I did use them but it was during very early childhood so they have a special place in my heart.
bandoti 1y ago
There’s a lot more to it actually. When given the knowledge of today, a lot can actually be done with vintage computers. I would say it’s an artistic medium. Take a look at the Commodore 64 developer manual and quickly realize that without much difficulty, one can learn the full assembly instruction set along with all BASIC commands. https://www.commodore.ca/manuals/c64_programmers_reference/c64-programmers_reference.htm https://www.commodore.ca/manuals/c64_programmers_reference/c... The machine is completely open to experimentation. You can write to memory anywhere including the active display terminal. The chips are easy to mix, match, swap. Hardware and software is malleable, not a locked-down black box of complexity and TPIM modules!
- bombcar 1y ago
  That’s the second order fascination which comes less in the actual original hardware but in rebuilds and equivalents and other “not collector but operational”. Those are how younger people are going to get excited for the hardware - the software is available to anyone willing to run an emulator.
bigpeopleareold 1y ago
I have become slightly more interested in the software, that is, the GUI, the operations, etc. I miss some of the simplicity of classic mac, and the silly ideas I had trying to program it (which I sort of understand better now.) The hardware is physically demanding and costly (space in my apartment is precious).
- bombcar 1y ago
  The emulators available are top-notch, and you can get a quite functional “developmental setup” running and even use file sharing to be able to target old Mac OS with modern IDEs.

deadbabe 1y ago

I don’t think it’s that simple. Yes for some people who used these machines once, they might just think of them as old machines, the same way an ancient Roman still alive today might not think much of mundane Roman tech. But getting into retro-computing as a hobby is more like being a historian or archaeologist. There is endless lore to discover, and restoring old hardware is an art. Some of these people were never old enough or even existed to lust after these machines. Someday, all the people who used these machines will be dead, completely dead, and the machines will be all that remains. Blessed are those who keep them running in their memory.

JKCalhoun 1y ago

Myself, I have passion for the KIM-1. Perhaps, as you suggest, because I saw it in a TAB book in the early 70's when I was a teenager, unable at that time to swing the $400 or so to get it. But I think my current passion has more to do with the simplicity of it, and being forced (well, more or less) to learn 6502 assembly. (Oh, and Christ an original KIM-1 is a good deal more than $400 now, ha ha. But there are nice reproductions you can build yourself.) What a breath of fresh air the thing is — having so little between its hex keypad and its six character display.

ehnto 1y ago

The same thing happens with cars. There's a somewhat predictable spike in used car prices for what become cult classics. Cars that are otherwise pretty mundane, and have since been well surpassed. It's the people now with full time employment, who couldn't afford them when they were 16. Now they can, and the cars in good condition are more scarce.

flomo 1y ago

You're right about the money part, but it always seemed more like a 30-year-old pursuit than middle-aged. But once I went through Vogons and had the impression that many of them lacked any taste. A lot of PCs (and Macs) were total shite back then. If you want to dink around, you can now get the best old stuff.

icehawk 1y ago

I don't think that's entirely it. A lot of the things I've been collecting in the hobby are just things that I had used a the time. I've got more weird variants of Mac SEs and Mac LCs which were things I had at home, or used at school, than the Quadras and Power Macs I dreamed of.

qoez 1y ago

For me I did use them but it was during very early childhood so they have a special place in my heart.

bandoti 1y ago

There’s a lot more to it actually. When given the knowledge of today, a lot can actually be done with vintage computers. I would say it’s an artistic medium. Take a look at the Commodore 64 developer manual and quickly realize that without much difficulty, one can learn the full assembly instruction set along with all BASIC commands. https://www.commodore.ca/manuals/c64_programmers_reference/c64-programmers_reference.htm https://www.commodore.ca/manuals/c64_programmers_reference/c... The machine is completely open to experimentation. You can write to memory anywhere including the active display terminal. The chips are easy to mix, match, swap. Hardware and software is malleable, not a locked-down black box of complexity and TPIM modules!

bombcar 1y ago
That’s the second order fascination which comes less in the actual original hardware but in rebuilds and equivalents and other “not collector but operational”. Those are how younger people are going to get excited for the hardware - the software is available to anyone willing to run an emulator.

bigpeopleareold 1y ago

I have become slightly more interested in the software, that is, the GUI, the operations, etc. I miss some of the simplicity of classic mac, and the silly ideas I had trying to program it (which I sort of understand better now.) The hardware is physically demanding and costly (space in my apartment is precious).

bombcar 1y ago
The emulators available are top-notch, and you can get a quite functional “developmental setup” running and even use file sharing to be able to target old Mac OS with modern IDEs.