In 15 years (if I make it), I'll be middle-aged. That's the main problem. 😉

To get an idea of what it might be like, search for "Altair 8800" and "Imsai 8080" on eBay and see what those are going for now. 😜 Not really a fair comparison -- far fewer of those ancient systems were sold in their time than C64 and the PC in their time.

Demand will also be less because the people that care for early 8BIT will start to die out.

Maybe, hmm. You could be right Peter but I don't know. I wasn't born into the 8 bit era, I missed it but I still love the computers and synthesizers just the same. Now naturally it was all chance that I happen to find that guy selling a PCjr at a flea market back in 2008 and get plunged into the whole world of retro computing link this.
If I hadn't I wouldn't have learned half the things I know now, in fact *shudder* I might even be like the rest of the people - completely oblivious to the wonders of retro computing. So while all the people who want one cause their first computer was a Commodore 64 might dissipate, the demand will never totally go away. There will always be people like us, people who are fond of weird gadgetry. 🤣

It weird to think that someday the P4 may be retro though. The first computer I bought was a second hand IBM S50 SFF Thinkcentre, I payed 100$ for it from Micomp back before they went out of business. 🤣 Man did those guys see me coming, I bought my current computer from them too for something like 300$ with a 200$ gfx card and a 100$ LCD monitor but that was years after the IBM. Now I've upgraded the CPU and RAM on that second computer to an E8400 Core 2 Duo and 8 GB RAM for a mere 50$. I guess these are considered obsolete now. 🤣

The # of people willing to pay large amounts is already limited. Millions of tons of obsolete equipment get processed / shredded annually.

Well they aren't willing to pay large amounts because the computers still exist outside of the internet in people's basements and attics across the world. All you have to do is ask the right people or keep an eye on the recycling centers. 😜

Firtasik wrote:

In 15 years (if I make it), I'll be middle-aged. That's the main problem. 😉

In fifteen years (if I make it) I'll be well into retirement. That is not much of a problem in and of itself. The real problem is that I will have reached the age to where I am older than those guys doing the Viagra commercials. Now THAT is a problem. 😉

In fifteen years I'll officially be a senior citizen (I'm 50 already so I'm starting to walk through that door anyway). Hopefully my two retro-rigs will still be around too; if not, then at least I'll have my pics to remind me of what I managed to accomplish back then (and wow the young ones too 😁 ).

In 15 years I'll be 38, I'll hopefully have a real career, a house and a family but who knows. Best laid plans...

Suddenly it became another age thread? 🤣
Anyway, I hope there's such a picture in one of our family albums -- I'd like to know what 286/386 PC we had when I was five!

Yeah that's kinda where I was going with this post, I realized there are no pictures of the computers my family was using back then. It will be cool to know what systems we had for the rest of our lives and perhaps we'll even still have them. 😁
Where as when I ask my father about our old systems he mainly doesn't remember things correctly or gives hazy info at best, I like that I have the opportunity to document my whole life. 😀

That'd be cool to see old computers. If it would make you happy then I don't see the problem. It'd be weird for me in the sense that it'd be like looking at a ghost of my previous self; might even creep me out TBH.

King_Corduroy wrote:

In 15 years I'll be 38, I'll hopefully have a real career, a house and a family but who knows. Best laid plans...

I turn 24 this year, so in 15 years i'll be 39. Career part is 4 years in so far.

I don't think there is 15 years, hell they are testing someone in Toronto for ebola and come to think of it the economy is in bad shape with trillion upon trillions of dept sitting on top of it which would take between 100-200 years to pay off. I don't look forward to the age of 39 in this day and age, social security will be a pipe dream by then and the cost of living will be insane. The middle class is loaded with comie liberals and shrinking faster than Obama's approval ratings oh well....

Back to retro things from a time when America was America.

Since this has become an "OMG old age" thread, I thought I would offer some words of wisdom for those of you still in your 20s or younger.

It is never too early to start saving for your retirement. I started working at 15 or 16, if I had started putting away $50 or $100 a month into a Roth IRA that was invested in something like a Vanguard index fund, and then upped that to $200 a month by say 26, and then just left it at that rate until I finally got my first "career" type job at 32, I'd be way better off than waiting until 32 to start investing (as soon as I had a job with an actual 401k I went in for 10%, I should have done 20% but oh well).

My point is, no one in their teens or 20s thinks about this, particularly if your family doesn't talk about it, or stress it since god knows they don't teach it to you in school.

While you generally don't have a lot of money at that age, what you do have is time. Lots of time. If you start investing at 16, you have 50 years to grow your money before you think about withdrawing it at 66. Even small amounts, invested regularly, will result in a large sum by the time you're that old. I think I used one of the many online retirement calculators (Schwab has a good one) and figured out that if you put in $50 per month starting at 12, never increased the contribution rate but steadily kept it going, you'd have easily $500k by age 66. While you wouldn't have the opportunity to work a job at that age, you could easily earn that type of income in the US doing odd jobs (car washing, dog walking, that kind of thing). If you wanted to wait until 16, kept the contribution rate the same and retirement age the same, you'd still have over $400,000.
If you bumped your contribution rate, you could easily reach 2 million on even a modest salary (say 25-35k).
But the trick is starting early and making those contributions rain or shine.

Anyway, I doubt anyone will listen as I sure didn't listen to my dad when I was 16. 🙁
I figured I am just making peanuts now, I will make way more when I get out of college, I can afford to delay saving until then. I didn't anticipate that I would spend most of my 20s broke as hell.

Actually snorg this is good advice, I have a Roth IRA and a 401K that I'm putting 20% into. Admittedly due to cash shortages lately I haven't contributed regularly to my Roth but realistically I should make sure I put a small amount in regularly.

I think the maximum annual contribution for a Roth is $5500 now? You could probably make that in side money doing a couple tech support calls on Saturdays over the course of a year. Or tending bar, for that matter.

I'm thinking about upping my contribution to 20 or 25 percent of my salary. My company doesn't match, unfortunately, but there is profit sharing plan of some kind. Hopefully I will have a better bonus this year.

Just trying to save some of the younger crowd from my mistakes. 😀

Also, 38/39/40 isn't quite "clapped out and over-the-hill" territory, speaking as someone who is 39. 😀
Although I do feel like I'm about 120 in "computer years".

If you're not in shape, get in shape and stay in shape. I'm convinced I'd be dead of a heart attack or stroke by now if I hadn't started working out again in my late 20s/early 30s.

Lol yeah computers advanced much faster than we could have imagined, being only 23 when I think about using window 95 and 98 when I was in grade school and High school and bringing assignments to school on 3.5" floppy diskettes to be printed because ink was so expensive (It still is. 😜 ) it seems like an unimaginably long time ago.

Also yeah since I got out of HS I'm no longer forced to participate in physical activities, the only thing I try to work out these days is my brain. 😜 I should definitely start riding my bicycle more or jogging or even lifting weights every day. I'm turning into a slob and I have the hacker tan. 😜

I've fallen off the fitness wagon a bit recently but I'm still in better shape at 39
than I was at 24. I'm trying to get back to lifting weights at the gym at least
twice a week and walking for 30 minutes twice a day the rest of the week.
I need to do one of the more extreme fitness programs like cross-fit or P90X
if I want to get back the kind of lean body mass I had when I was 18 or 19.

I was never into team sports growing up and always got picked last in gym
class so that sort of soured me on physical fitness when I was younger.
If they'd let me hit the weights for 45 minutes every day instead I think I
might have been happier.

Anyway, barring cancer or some odd hereditary illness so many of the health
problems we see in the US and other Western nations are completely avoidable.